In fact denying the inevitable has undermined pledges about solvent governments.Instead of austerity and pretence, a credible rescue should start with growth and, where it is unavoidable, a serious restructuring of debt.
As a coalition of health and local authority organisations warned last month in a letter to the chancellor, slicing 6.2% of public health funding used for "vital" locally provided services completely undermines pledges to pump billions into the NHS by 2020.
Impunity in violent crimes against journalists has tarnished Russia's record on press freedom and undermined pledges by both President Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to strengthen the rule of law (see "Russia's Lawless Legality").
But the government led by Prime Minister Mykola Azarov undermined its pledges of eventual closer affiliation with the West, which would require concessions toward political openness, when police on Sunday dispersed the demonstrators with truncheons and tear gas.
The move, revealed in an email exchange between campaigners and an official at the Department for International Development (DfiD), appears to undermine repeated government pledges that such climate aid should be additional to existing overseas development aid (ODA).
That might undermine tobacco industry pledges to refrain from certain kinds of advertising, he said, and could hamper any efforts by New York to turn the settlement to its advantage.
However, Labour said the government had undermined its pledge by reinstating flexibility, allowing firms to raise non-regulated fares.
The announcement by the project's Malaysian backers undermined a pledge by Boris Johnson to advertise all new homes to Londoners first.
After the letter emerged, a coalition of environmental bodies issued a warning to the prime minister David Cameron that he risked seriously undermining his pledge to lead the "greenest government ever" if he did not back the targets.
In the Dec. 5 address, the president said, "The question now is: is the Supreme Court in violation of the Constitution?" For his part, the chief justice has characterized the impeachment effort as an attempt to undermine the judiciary, pledging in an address to court employees on Monday that he would "fight all who dare to destroy the court and our system of justice".
