Respondents fall into four categories.

Long term opponents of the Conservatives are critical of the messages. That is no surprise, and would have been true whatever had been put out.

Some loyal Conservatives are pleased with them, and will get on and put them to electors once the election gets underway.

UKIP supporters and sympathisers are critical. They want the Conservatives to speak mainly about the EU, sovereignty, immigration and related subjects. Time will tell how many of them carry out their threat and vote UKIP, knowing as they must do that it makes the election of a federalist MP in their seat and an overall federalist Lib/Lab government more likely.

Some Conservatively inclined voters are also expressing doubts, or sending in messages they would prefer the Conservatives to get across. Many will find that their concerns are covered in policy statements, available on the Conservative official website. The next few weeks are not just about how the swing voters swing, but how many traditional Conservative sympathisers do finally decide to vote for a change of government. There is only one realistically on offer, and that is change to a Conservative government.

Traditional Conservatives need to be reminded that their party has pledged to reverse some Labour policies they most dislike – the one way ratchet of powers to Brussels, the lack of proper border controls, the surveillance society and the ballooning deficit.

As a non Euro member it would give the UK a good opportunity to bow out of more of the needless EU government that we do not want, and would give us the opportunity to have a refererendum on the Treaty as modified. Clearly the UK should not be party to the bails outs or the rules imposed on Euro members. The EU would doubtless need to give us substantial powers back to make a new Treaty palatable to the UK public.

A single currency scheme either needs a single government which can make the calls on how much to borrow, how much to print, and how much to spend, or it needs a set of rules over how much each of the individual memebrs can spend, borrow and print. If I were a German taxpayer I would not wish to bail out Greece. I would not be satisfied they have done enough to cut their spending. I would be worried in case Portugal, Spain and others were in the queue for my support as well.

Why do these governments whinge and whine so much about the need to reduce their costs? Business accepts that in recessionary times you may need to cut costs by 10% or 20% to survive. You just get on and do it. You don’t do it by threatening your customers with a worse service, or by cutting back your front line service or best product offerings. You do it by working smarter and cheaper.

These EU governments – and the UK – have failed to make themselves efficient and to discipline their costs for years. That should make it easy to cut the costs of doing what they need to do. They should be told to get on with it, instead of seeking new ways to milk the taxpayer. Borrowing more is just delayed tax.

A 35 minute drive to Heathrow, a one hour flight and a thirty minute taxi journey were bound to be shorter, even allowing for the waiting and checking time at Heathrow. I estimated I could leave home at 7am and still be there for 10.30, and so it proved. Three and a half hours. Not good, but fewer links to go wrong.

I could have driven to Euston, but that would entail battling the congestion and heavy London traffic in the morning rush hour, culminating in a difficulty in parking no doubt. That would have taken the best part of two hours, still leaving me with more than a four and a half hour journey if fortunate.

The cheapest option and maybe even the quickest would probably have been to drive the whole way. There was parking at the other end.

We learn this week that after 13 years of dithering and failing to put in any significant new rail or road infrastructure (other than the Channel link which the previous government had planned) the Transport Secretary suddenly wants to slash journey times by train to Birmingham. Of course, on closer inspection he does not expect the government to do this any time soon. It looks like an announcement for an election.

As my journey indicates, for many of us the problem with train travel is getting to the right station to jump onto a faster train in the first place. The endless congestion in most town and city centres near to stations is the number one problem we all face when thinking of train travel. If I lived near Euston and if my meeting had been near Manchester Picadilly it would have been a no brainer to go by train, but few of us are in such a position.

We want easier, cheaper and more timely point to point jounreys of the kind we actually undertake. My journey to Manchester did not need a faster train from London, but easier access to local stations, and faster trains from local feeder stations to main termini.

The government is always talking of joined up policies and integrated transport policy. True integration would improve junctions and roadspace to allow us road access to main stations, and provide plenty of parking when we get there. Then people might switch more to fast trains, and the train might indeed take some of the strain. At the moment the anti motorist policies in many cities gum up the works, force the use of more fuel per mile travelled, delay and frustrate motorists and impede access to rail services. Instead of grandstanding about ever faster trains on a few routes, Ministers should think about real journeys made by people trying to work in this country.

The tripartite regulators led by the Chancellor made some very important judgements 2005-8. Between 2005 and 2007 they thought banks had more than enough capital and cash for their huge increases in lending and investment banking. They were wrong. They allowed the banks to bloat their balance sheets in a damagaing way.

Between end 2008 and today they have told the banks they have to raise or hold much more capital and cash relative to their lending. This has unsurprisingly proved very recessionary. Again they have been wrong – they should have asked for a more sensible rate of progress to more prudence, geared to the state of the economic cycle.

If the regulators wish to make more judgements, they should consider the next possible crisis, not the last.

They should ask, for example

Is it right for pension funds to be encouraged or required to keep so much of their asset in Uk government bonds? Markets think at these interest rate levels these are risky instruments. What happens if markets lose confidence in Uk government debt, or if interest rates have to increase substantially to raise all the extra money?

Is it right to encourage or require banks to keep so much of their liquidity in UK government bonds? What happens if they fall in price?

I wanted to get to Manchester and back as quickly as I could. For reasons I will describe tomorrow that meant I had to go by car and plane, rather than by car and train. It meant experiencing once again the security and customer handling at Heathrow. There are a few questions I would like to raise about physical security, as opposed to intelligence and policing work.

The main worry yesterday at airport security seemed to be women who might be concealing bombs in their scarves or boots. They all had to take these off and put them through a scanner. All of us had to remove our belts, any men wearing boots had to take those off but shoes were fine, and all had to remove coats and jackets. No-one was found with anything wrong whilst I was in the queue. Meanwhile at the station no-one was searched for anything, despite the fact that terrorists have attacked trains as well as planes in recent years. The first question I have is why do we treat air and train travel so differently?

Because it took each person time to take some of their clothes off, find enough trays to put it all in, and prepare for the scanners,there was a long queue. There were not enough scanners available and open. When you choose which queue to join it is not possible to see which queue is longest, owing to the way the queues were controlled, so some people had to wait longer than others depending on the lottery of the queues. Why can’t they provide more channels? Why can’t they have proper overall queue control so waiting times are fair?

Security also required three different checks on the boarding card of each pasenger. We had to queue to have the boarding pass checked before being allowed into the security check area, we had to queue again to have the boarding card re checked to get from the security check area to the gates, and then again to gain access to the plane from the gate. I see the obvious need to check everyone at the point where they board the plane, to make sure we know who is on the plane, to check they are on the right plane and have paid the fare. I assume they also want to have a check on every person first going airside, so they can make sure all who reach airside can be accounted for. Why do they also need a third check on the boarding card?

As someone who has urged splitting up the monopoly over London airports I hope that when these main airports are in different ownership we will see improvements in the way security checks are handled. It is, after all, taking time away from shopping at the airport, and putting passengers into a mood where they are less likely to be willing to spend.

It is: “We can’t go on like this. Vote for change”

Change includes:

“Change the economy. Back aspiration and opportunity for all. Gordon Brown’s debt, waste and taxes are holding us back and threatening the recovery with higher interest rates”

“Change society. Mend our broken society by encouraging responsibility and backing those who do the right thing.”

“Change politics. Give people more power and control.”

Any comments?

After a decline of almost one quarter in the currency, you would expect both a surge in exports and a lively increase in import substitution. The absence of both so far implies several problems.

First, a lot of capacity was clearly lost in the recession. Factories were closed, people were made redundant. The last twelve years have seen industry decline as a result of high taxes and high regulatory costs.

Second, manufacturers have been finding it difficult to get bank finance for their activities. In need of cash, they have favoured putting prices up in sterling terms, taking advantage of the lower pound to do so. They have been forced to raise their margins on lower volumes given the shortage of finance.

Third, the UK in recent years has lost great swathes of capacity. JCB recently told us how small a proportion of their vehicle components they can now source from the UK. If you go into most clothes shops there are racks and racks of Asian textile products because the UK industry has been cut to the bone. UK steel plant is closing as demand falls.

We need policies that will help industry recover and build new capacity. That requires changes to taxes, regulations, and bank regulation.

Labour sought to endow Thatcherism with five disagreeable features:

1. The economics of boom and bust
2. Belief in or acceptance of great inequalities
3.Run down of manufacturing
4.Intolerance of minorities
5. Cuts in “front line public services”

They also attempted to tarnish popular Euroscepticism with these alleged failures, branding the “old” Conservatives as too Eurosceptic, and seeking to associate this mindset with the rest.

The truth is, of course, the opposite of most of this. Thatcherism was based on

1. Honest money – economic policy was grounded on targets for the amount of money that could safely be allowed in circulation to fuel non inflationary growth. Boom and bust was introduced by shadowing the DM and by John Major’s policy of joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism against Margaret’s better instincts, a policy urged on him by Labour and the Lib Dems in a consensual act of folly. The one Conservative economic error was to become too Euro friendly and to join a European scheme of economic management which was bound to fail.

2. Encouraging a land of opportunity for all, where anyone could get on in life whatever their background, whoever their father was, wherever they went to school. High Thatcherism was based on shares for all, more small business activity,sharing wealth and income through hard work and access to opportunity.

3. Manufacturing was seen as an important part of our economy. It was in the Tory years that the motor industry was rebuilt in the UK by attracting foreign captial and management following the collapse of the nationalised UK industry. The pharmaceutical, aerospace and other leading industries flourished with appropriate government help.

4. I never heard Margeret Thatcher express any hostility to people on the basis of creed, colour, religion or lifestyle. We sought a Britain that used all its talents, whatever their background. We did not wish to make windows into men’s souls or to send in the thought police.

5. In the 1980s the government pursued a radical policy towards nationalised industry, but a very traditional cross party policy rowards Health, education and the police. Each year saw real increases in funding, and the PM regularly made speeches explaining how much extra the government was spending. She did not seek cuts to front line services and valued new schools, hospitals and the additional teachers, nurses, doctors and police which she recruited.

If we compare this with Labour’s recpord, the irony is that they have come closer to their caricature of Thatcherism than the Thatcher government ever did.

1. They followed a policy which created a far bigger boom and bust than the ERM
2. Inequalities rose under Labour
3. Manufacturing output fell under Labour , compared to growth under the Conservatives
4. Labour promoted some minorities, but attacked other groups in society which it did not like. Do not be a Nimby or a motorist under this government.
5. Labour continued with the policy of real increases in spending on most public services, yet it failed to fund the army properly for the wars it wished to fight, and allowed so much of the extra cash to be absorbed in administration and pay increases that some cuts did take place despite the record funding.

The changes Conservatives are calling for today are changes to the way the UK is run. We have been run by a government of spinners for too long. Their cariacture of Thatcherism is one of their successes. It is time we swept it away, pointing out it is a tissue of lies. If only we had had the same success with growth, industrial growth and rising living standards in the last decade that we enjoyed in the 80s we would be a lot better off. The Conservatives have “changed” from the caricature of Thatcherism – mainly because most of it is myth not reality.

His five clause Bill states “The sovereignty of Parliament is hereby reaffirmed”. It goes on to protect sovereignty from treaties, other legislation and the European Communities Act, itself the fount of EU power in the UK. It would send a clear signal to UK courts that they need to follow UK law, even if this is in conflict with EU law.

I look forward to William Hague telling us if this is the way he will propose his own Parliamentary sovereignty legislation which has been promised, or if he has some other way of doing it. The Cash short simple Bill looks good to me.

Today the business voice seems united in saying we need lower tax rates to allow more business and jobs to grow in the UK. I entirely agree. They could add to their case that that would be the best way to increase tax revenues. If we carry on with Labour’s tax and pillage policies more and more companies will go abroad, cut their activities in the UK, be deterred from new investment or will simply not start up. 28% is an uncompetitive Corporation Tax rate, 50% an uncompetitive higher income tax rate, and National Insurance is a substantial tax on jobs when we need to be encouraging jobs.

A government keen to promote jobs and growth, and keen to cut the deficit, would cut the rates of tax on earning and making profits.

It is the culmination of bad handling of recruitment, training, retention and dismissal in Labour’s public sector. The strike reflects badly on both sides. A good employer should not need to make too many employees redundant, because he would not have over recruited in the first place. Redundancies can be an unhappy necessity in a business where demand suddenly collapses, often owing to government financial and economic mismangement of the economy. It should not be common in the public sector, where traditionally spending goes up every year regardless of economic performance. This year again spending will rise.

It demonstrates that the public sector still does not get how grave the national financial situation is. The government needs to sit down with representatives of all its staff and hammer out how the total pay bill is going to be cut. Will it be done by work sharing, by recruitment bans, by pay freezes, by selective closures and redundancies in non front line services, or some combination of all these? After years of overexpansion of numbers and pay we need something new to the public sector – a fall in the total pay bill. Industry has had to do this on a big scale in the recession, and has done so without large strikes and with substantial co-operation between managers and employees. When will the public sector wake up to what it needs to do?

David Cameron yesterday said ” We will never forget there is no such thing as government money. It is taxpayers’ money – your money”. He pledged to root out waste, get better value, and concentrate spending on the important areas. He wishes to start cutting the deficit as soon as possible if elected.

The Conservatives are – amongst other things – pledged to abolish ID cards, centralised computer projects, and English regional Assemblies and RDAs. They have said they intend to cut the overhead and administrative costs of Whitehall and quangoland by one third, impose a pay freeze for all but the lowest paid throughout the public sector in 2011, limit top public sector pensions, cut Ministerial pay by 5% and then freeze it, cut the number of MPs and Spin doctors, cut the government advertising budget, cut regulatory costs through regulatory budgets, cut the overhead and supervision of Town Hall from Whitehall and scrap Comprehensive Area Assessments. They would require Town Halls to list all items of spending over £500, and to list all senior staff earning about £58,500 a year with full details of their total package. They will move to a higher pension age for all.

Recognising the need to cut taxes on enterprise and jobs, they have said they will cut the Standard rate of Corporation Tax to 25% from 28%, the smaller company rate from 22% to 20%, abolish NI on the first ten jobs created by a new business for two years,and make further cuts in NI a priority. They would seek a two year freeze on Council Tax. They would reform welfare to provide better incentives to work.

There is another argument critics of too much taxpayer borrowing should use as well. It goes like this.

Borrowing is deferred taxation. It damages output and demand. When the government borrows on behalf of taxpayers, it takes the money from companies and individuals who lend it. They no longer have that money to spend. The government spends it on their behalf instead. So the borrowing cuts private sector demand at the same time as it boosts public sector activity.

Worse still, people sense that whatever the government might say, taxpayers will have to help repay all that debt with interest in the years ahead. They know that means tax increases to do so. More borrowing can make people more negative about spending up to their current incomes, as they are always looking over their financial shoulders at the next increases in taxes and charges the government will place on them.

Under the current regime there is another negative complication. Much of the money the government is borrowing will be lent by banks. This is money the banks will not then be able to lend to the private sector. Instead of the banks’ deposits being available to lend out several times over to the private sector (through fractional reserve banking where a bank can lend out multiples of its cash and capital), the new banking regulations mean the money can only be lent out once to the government. No wonder money supply growth is weak, and no wonder the private sector finds it difficult to borrow enough at a sensible rate.

So far from being expansionary, helping pull us out of recession, all this borrowing takes money directly and indirectly away from the private sector. That is why the economy remains weak.

If they really wanted a strong economy they would change the bank regulations to allow more private sector lending, cut the deficit to take less money away from the private sector, and cut taxes on income and employment to encourage more enterprise. That would be a way of supporting the eocnomy and fostering growth. There seems no danger of them doing that any time soon. They would rather go on misleading us about the consequences of too much borrowing.

If they simply print the money to spend in the public sector it is a different matter. Even this government has stopped that, as I presume they now see that can have inflationary consequences. In the short term it can push up prices by lowering the pound. In the longer term it can trigger a more general inflation as too much money chases too few goods.

My own interest is today stronger in the war in Afghanistan. All too many of our young soldiers are dying there. We are expending large amounts of blood and treasure on this conflict. This is the Obama/Brown war, the war they have just intensified, the war they clearly do support. Whilst I understand you do not announce an exit date in a way which could increase the difficulties for our troops, I would like to feel that the government is impatient to leave Afghanistan to the Afghans to govern. These wars in the Middle East do not make me feel safer. We cannot conquer and garrison great swathes of the Middle East and should not be wanting to. There has been too little emphasis on political solutions, to what are problems of government more than military questions.

Their recent witch hunt of selected Non Doms is a case in point. There is one thing much worse than seeing rich people avoid paying UK tax on their foreign earnings – and that would be to see them leave the UK or not come here in the first place, meaning they would not pay any tax at all here. I see nothing wrong with tax rules, presided over by both parties in government, that allow rich people with substantial overseas business interests and homes abroad to pay tax abroad on those, if they pay UK tax on their businesses and investments which they do base in the UK. It’s a win win for the UK taxman, as they come here, create jobs and companies here, and spend money here, paying tax on all those activities like the rest of us.

Given the state of near bankruptcy we now have been driven into, this country will need all the rich entrepeneurial friends it can find to pay some tax and create some enterprise here. It would be a foolish government which chose this moment to make the climate so hostile to enterprise and success that the rich queued up to leave or decided to stay away.

It becomes more complicated when these individuals wish to participate in UK politics and wish to spend some of their money on helping political parties. Both main parties have had Non Dom money, and all three parties have had some controversies over particular donors. Until recently it was accepted and it was legal for a party to propose a Non Dom for the House of Lords and for such a peer to influence the laws Parliament passes. Now the main parties have decided to change this ruling, and say only people paying full UK taxes on all their income and activities should be eligible for the Lords or able to stand for the Commons.

I have no problem with such a stance. It goes with the new spirit of transparency and regulation. The old position was defensible and used to cause no worry before the current crisis. It has never been a requirement to hold elected office or selected office in Parliament that you have experienced all the things we regulate or legislate about. Most Parliamentarians are not criminals, but happily opine on the best way to frame the criminal law. Men legislate for women and women for men. Adults legislate for children. A good legislator can think himself or herself into the position of those who will be affected by the legislation without necessarily having experienced the problem or situation themselves. It may seem strange today that people who did not pay UK taxes on all their worldwide income could legislate, yet such people were often paying more UK tax than others in the legislature because they were richer or more successful financially.

I would like to make one comment on Michael Ashcroft. At no time when I was Shadow Business Secretary, Shadow Environment Transport and Regions Secretary, or was busily writing the Economic Policy Report for the Opposition did Michael ever contact me to lobby me about the policies we were proposing, nor did he ever write to me seeking influence. Nor did any Leader ever do that for him.

So what should they do to restore some private sector jobs, prosperity and balance to the UK economy? They should send a letter to the Chancellor telling him to make necessary changes so they can run an intelligent money policy that does support recovery. The letter should recommend:

1. The FSA relaxes cash and capital controls on banks lending to the UK private sector, so more money can be released for companies in the UK to expand jobs and investment.

2. The government should start immediately on a deficit reducing package of spending reductions to cut the government’s demands on credit markets.

If the FSA did what it needs to do, the Bank of England should at the same time start to unwind the £200 billion of quantitative easing, providing us with a target of how much money and credit it is happy to see in circulation. Unleashing bank lending without a phased withdrawal of the QE would be inflationary.

If the government does not start to cut the deficit the Bank should raise interest rates. The fall in sterling we are witnessing is inflationary. Delaying raising rates will lead to a worse problem later, and to higher rates later. Once again this MPC seems to want to live in denial, and will end up doing too much too late as it has done over the last five years of this monetary crisis. The current Bank rate bears no relationship to the structure of rates being paid by business, or even by the government itself for anything other than very short term money. It is time for a reality check. If the MPC doeds not seek to get back in charge, it will continue to be made irrelevant by the markets who have a very different view of the success of UK policy to that of the government and its MPC.

The first was another ridiculous guillotine or “timetable motion”. All previous governments have followed the convention that MPs should have as much time as it needs to debate constitutional Bills. Not this one. We were given just five hours to consider more than 50 pages of amendments and new clauses, many of them produced by the government itself. We protested, we pleaded. We pointed out that if the government wishes to be taken seriously in its new found role of believer in a strong Parliament the very least it should do is to allow sufficient time on major matters for criticism, debate and proposed improvements. We should have known better. Once again, the government used its majority to insist on too little time.

The second was the “Money resolution”. Each Bill which will impose additional costs on long suffering taxpayers has to come with a Money resolution. The government invites the House to vote in favour of the extra spending as part of the proceedings on the Bill. This Bill had already come with one Money Resolution, but apparently they had got it wrong or it had not covered later amendments to the Bill, so they needed a supplementary.

The new Money Resolution came without any figures. I asked how much we were being asked to approve. I was told that the previous Money Resolution was somewhere between £80 and £100 million. This new one might or might not be additional. There were no numbers. On this sloppy basis I and my colleagues voted against. The Labour majority happily shoved through a Money resolution in ignorance of how much it might cost.

This one was a relatively small item. It is nonetheless representative of the casual approach to spending that has characterised the last five years. No wonder the government has lost control of public finances. No wonder this Parliament had a reputation for uselessness, when we can’t even be told how much money we are voting for, and when the majoritry party does not seem to think these little niceties matter. No wonder the big issue which so many MPs do still not seem to grasp is the looming deficit and the financial crisis it will engender if not tackled soon.

I told you so. I always knew the Conco offer to cut the deficit and stop borrowing and printing so much would not take off. The latest news of the polling for the Board elections is wonderful for your Board and for Uk PLC.

We have been thinking about how we can reinforce our offer and consolidate our position in the marketplace. Some favour introducing a GOF GAF. It’s a bit like a BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) only more generous – Get One Free, Get Another Free. Why bother wasting time and money collecting cash from people for the first one, when we could simply give away two for the price of none? It should be knock out popular.

Others say let’s just helicopter in some cash and drop it over the most deserving parts of the country which will be participating sensibly in the UK wide Board elections. It would show off our never knowingly underborrowed, never knowingly underspent strategy so well. That should have them waving all the way to the state owned bank. It will get things moving again.

I think I prefer the third idea we have been working up. These first two ideas are a bit too flashy and could give us a bad name. We will simply announce lots of extra UK PLC jobs, of interest to supporters of our general approach. We need some more Networkers, Co-ordinators, Cross cutting policy Specialists, Deputy chief Executives of departments and quangos, Senior and Junior Spin doctors, Media handling specialists, Message honers, Press release and Glossy brochure authors, web monitors and web interveners. Come to think of it, I could do with a few more people to help liven up these letters to Shareholders whilst I am about it. Meanwhile let’s have a national competition for a new slogan. Send in your ideas beginning “UK PLC is right to borrow more because…..”

Rest assured, one way or another, we will go to new records on spending and borrowing. We will see you through tough times. We will print what it takes. We will never be underspent.

Yours enjoying every minute of all this money

CEO

Local government and some outside commentators are talking about cuts as large as 10-20%, based on the extent of the overspending in national budgets generally. These figures seem high, bearing in mind the importance of schools spending within local government totals, and the priority accorded to education spending by all three main parties. What is clear is that cuts are coming to Councils once the election is out of the way. The government made itself sound silly by trying to pretend this was not so, when their own plans to cut the deficit in half must require cuts from Councils as well as elsewhere.