Politicians of all hues wonder why the general population treat them with contempt. Perhaps it is simply because they really are snake oil salesmen who promise much but deliver little.

In recent days we have discovered Mr Cameron’s ‘no ifs – no buts’ promise to reduce net immigration was as big a porky as Mr Osborne’s promise to balance the national books by 2015.

We can all remember Mr Clegg’s pledge not to increase tuition fees; that lasted as long as it took him to warm to the idea of ministerial office and the accoutrements of power and privilege.

No one seriously believes Mr Cameron when he says he will negotiate a new deal with the EU, the electorate is too savvy and far too clever to fall for such an untruth. Moreover, the people know that Mr Cameron is a past master in the art of saying one thing and doing another; always claiming his hand has been forced by ‘circumstances’.

Taken with former Prime Minister Brown’s promise that training schemes would ensure British jobs for British workers and Tony Blair’s outrageous failure to ensure every citizen had access to a NHS dentist by 2001, it should come as no surprise to politicians that the public have difficulty in believing anything they say.

At the Conservative Party Conference In October 2007, Chris Grayling ‘promised’ to compensate savers whose pension schemes had collapsed, he promised to ‘re-float’ the pensions lifeboat which was quashed by Gordon Brown using the Parliament Act.

Mr Grayling argued that Mr Brown’s handling of the pension system was “nothing short of criminal”

Closer to home we have had a former councillor leader promise that the tabernacle stones would be used in a town centre development with the cost of £320k being reimbursed by the developer and a cabinet member blithely declaring the £400k squandered on a project which will forever be a text book case study on how not to make friends and influence people – was going to be repaid (note the word ‘repaid’) with 20 per cent interest. The truth of course has been very different.

I think the last word on political rectitude should be left to a comment attributed to Gordon Brown, who this week announced he will not be seeking re-election to the House of Commons. “There is nothing that you could say to me now that I could ever believe”. Which is why no one believes Mr Cameron when he says he will negotiate.

Des Morgan Caraway Drive Swindon