Mar 31 2007
The main struggles are currently within the parties, not between them
Labour is deeply split between Blairites and more traditional tax and spenders. Gordon Brown is trying to straddle the two wings, hinting deeply to the left ??that he has been the architect of tax and spend, centralised public services, resistance to the wilder parts of the Blairite programme, whilst at the same time saying he supports Tony Blair in his wish to modernise and reform as well as spend.
It is not clear how the battle will end in Labour, especially as it is still most likely to be a struggle within the mind of Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister in waiting. It is still more likely Milliband will not stand than he will, still more likely Labour will accept their fate and welcome Gordon than plan a successful coup against him.
This does not mean the battle is over for the modernisers. The new Prime Minister will inherit a position where there is less extra money available for public spending than in the past, and will understand the public mood that we are fed up with paying so much for so little. He will need to have some prominent Blairite modernisers around him. They will be generating more of the ideas, trying to push the new PM in the direction of greater choice within the public services, more use of the private sector and more emphasis on personal and family responsibility.
It is difficult to see, however, that Gordon Brown will be able to push through choice and the private sector based reforms that Tony Blair was unable to achieve. He will need Union funding for the next election, and his own instincts are for centralisation and government control rather than for the freedom of the marketplace.
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Labour will in practise be the monopoly public sector tax and spend party, with the new added ingredient of much smaller increases in spending.
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The Conservative party in the country,stimulated ??by more success at the polls, will come to understand the modernising purpose of David Cameron more than it has done so far. They will come to appreciate that "hugging a hoodie" before he goes off the rails does not mean their Leader is soft on crime, that sharing the proceeds of growth does mean lower taxes allied to economic prudence to avoid high interest rates, and seeking powers back from Brussels whilst keeping trade arrangements with our partners is the mainstream view in the UK. The Conservatives are currently the most united party of the three. It is the only party where the leadership question has been settled. The modernisers will be able to push ahead and produce a mroe radical manifesto that will offer much more personal freedom and responsibility, fewer laws and regulations, more decentralised decision taking.
??The Liberal Democrats are deeply split, between the minority of modernisers who want to make the Liberal Democrats more like the Conservatives, and the left wing majority who think Labur’s mistake is they have not spent enough in many areas and have not regulated and taxed enough either. They are worried about the performance of their leader.
??When you look at what modernising means in both the Labour and Liberal democrat parties, you realise it is similar to the agenda many of us Conservatives have had for many years.
They are beginning to realise a high tax Britain will be a less successful Britain.
They are coming to understand that monopoly public servies controlled by Whitehall do not work well, and waste a lot of money.
They want to harness the private sector in the NHS and education.
The see that the comprehensive school and the council estate in the inner city are letting people down - they understand the damage less social mobility is doing.
It will be an exciting time as the battles are fought out within the parties.
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
“The main struggles are currently within the parties, not between them”
Your title sums up the problem with current politics. All parties share the same policies so all policy disputes are held within each party. This leaves the non-affiliated general public with no option but to look to the smaller parties or just ignore politics entirely.
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JR: “Voting for parties that cannot win in a General Election cannot further the causes you believe in.”
We do not know, so far as I can tell anyway, what policies the ‘other parties’ are taking from the Conservatives, because we don’t actually have any Conservative policies yet.
Cameron made one definate commitment during his leadership contest, to withdraw from the EPP within a defined period. That defined period elapsed months ago, the Tories are still in the EPP.
Since he became leader, he has endorsed Poly Toynbee, the mysanthropic rabid Marxist. He has endorsed the Socialist principle of the redistrubution of wealth. He has embraced the disguised socialist environmental hysteria, and is preparing to implement so called ‘green policies’ to impose more socialist regulation and taxes on industry and commerce. If rationing of ariline tickets, suggested within the last few weeks, isn’t a communist policy, I damn well don’t know what is! Basically, I see no evidence that he is anything but a Socialist.
The causes I believe in are; Freedom of expression, economic freedom, individual freedom, individual responsibility, low taxation, the rule of law and constitutional small government. Not one thing Cameron has said leads me to think he gives more than a microsecond’s thought to any of those concepts, ever.
So if voting for one or other of the small parties is what it takes to ram through the thick skulls of our politicians that we want a real choice between the mainstream parties, if that is what it takes, then I for one want you lot to learn that lession. I am sick of socialism, you can’t make it palatable by pretending it is Conservatism.
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JR: “I also believe in freedom of expression, economic freedom, individual responsibility, low taxation, the rule of law and constitutional small government. All those ideas matter more to me than any particular party.”
John, your opinions on those issues are in no doubt. The doubt is, what does Cameron think? If he really believes what he says in regard to Toynbe, redistribution of wealth, and environmental hysteria, then he is not a Conservative. If he doesn’t believe it, then he is worse, a demogouge out for power for its own sake. We already have one of those, we do not want nor need another to replace him.
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John,
The question remains - can we trust Cameron to fulfil these policies?
Too often he seems like Blair and we don
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Kit’s problem remains. We merely have to wait till one side or other in each party has won. We have no actual choice when, as currently, all parties are pretty much agreed on the eco-doom, low growth scenario. If, as you say, putting your vote to small party doesn’t help, then everybody who doesn’t accept the political consensus is effectively disenfranchised. No wonder fewer & fewer are voting. Tha answer is proportional representation which would free individuals to stand for what they believe in without it being sieved through a “big tent”.
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JR: I also believe in freedom of expression, economic freedom, individual responsibility, low taxation, the rule of law and constitutional small government. All those ideas matter more to me than any particular party.
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