Sep 30 2007
We want policies and passion at the Conservative conference
I wish David Cameron well at this Conference. It is an important one. It will be used by the Prime Minister to judge whether he dares hold an opportunistic snap election, by former Conservative voters to see if they are ready to vote again for the Conservatives, and by floating voters to see if they like the new Conservative team and message. The polls are moving around rapidly. They also reveal that all the three main political parties are still very unpopular, with milllions of people unlikely to vote for anyone,and with many thinking of voting for parties that have no chance of returning a single MP.
He has the policies, set out in the Policy reviews. Many of them are good, and many of them complement each other. Iain Duncan Smith’s work on our broken society, Peter Lilley’s on tackling global poverty, the Economic Policy Review on creating a more prosperous Britain, and the Stephen Dorrell proposals on reforming public services mesh well with each other. I have commented in a previous blog on how best to be green. David’s task is to endorse the best of each and give prominence to the ideas that capture the essence of what we are about in each case.
To tackle a broken society Conservatives believe much more has to be done by social entrepreneurs. The family needs to be strengthened and given a more important role.
To tackle world poverty, we need to seek better ways of spending the large sums of aid sent by the EU and the UK, and to place more emphasis on enterprise and self help, backed by much freer trade globally.
To create more and better paid jobs at home we need to free Britiain to compete. We need lower taxes, fewer regulations, better transport and much better value for money from government.
To create more successful schools and hospitals we need to dismantle bureaucratic empires at the naitional and regional level, trusting local managers and professionals more and sending them more of the money. We should give the service users much more choice, which will drive higher quality.
David needs to explain how the problems have changed since the 1980s - then it was poor phones, energy and transport companies in the nationalised sector, and dreadful labour relations. Privatisaiton and trade Union reform were the answers which Labour has largely accepted. The external threat was communism, which the Reagan/Thatcher axis stood up to forcing reform from within the evil empire.Today it is the broken society, and the UK falling further behind the successful Anglosphere economies.
The external problems are terrorism and world poverty, where poverty is created or exacerbated by evil regimes like that in Zimbabwe.
He needs to show how Conservative values of greater freedom, less government interference, but passionate commitment to use state power where it can have an effect and where it can make a difference is what drives Conservatives. There are plenty of problems to tackle, as the policy reviews reveal. The nation does want a change, but it needs to be assured that the Conservatives are the right one.
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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...
Couldn’t agree with you more, John. By taking the best from all the policy groups, David Cameron could put together a stunning manifesto that addresses all the key problems facing the UK at the moment.
Let’s hope he gets his message across loud and clear.
JR:
I would like to see a pledge from Mr Cameron to stop sending so much money abroad and look after the people in this country. Every year we give hand outs to places like Africa and have done so throughout my life and the same problems still remain. We see a shortage of housing in this country, we see patients going without drugs due to the cost, (well in England we do) we also see pensioners denied a decent level of pension without means testing and we deny free university education to students in England but we can still pledge billions of pounds in foreign aid. Why are we always the biggest doner?
Mr Blair et al, have made a great living out of flying around the world giving our money away, yes world poverty is a problem, but I feel we should look after our own people first. I fear that Mr Cameron may well decide to do the same, I would have been livid had I lived in his constituency when he went off on his hug a hutu trip while I was flooded out.
I wish Mr Cameron well and hope he becomes a Conservative again but at the moment despite the unpopularity of the current government, we are not doing well in the polls. I accept there is only one poll that matters, but we should be making progress and as far as I can see we are not.
Please remind Mr Cameron that he is hoping to become PM of Great Britain and not a benevolent President of the world….that is the job of charities.
To tackle a broken society Conservatives believe [.......]. The family needs to be strengthened and given a more important role.
I think this is somewhere the Conservatives are still stuck in the past with.
A tax break for married couples will do little to keep people together when things get difficult. In my view, it will actually increase divorce rate, as people living together may tend to get married for the perceived financial benefit.
No, I think what will help the broken society is keeping the entire family involved with bringing up the children even when the parents do split up. The current system financially favours mothers who try to keep the father out of the children’s lives compleatly and it also fails to reward parents to strive for joint of parenting. (if you’re interested in specific examples, let me know )