Conservative Party

The NHS, Public Services And David Cameron’s Coke Zero Conservatism

Samuel Hooper40 Comments

David Cameron Conservative Party Spring Conference 2015 - A Strong Economy For A Strong NHS

 

“A Strong Economy For A Strong NHS” proclaims the large banner hanging above the Manchester venue where the Conservative Party is gathering for their pre-election spring conference. And right there, in letters six feet high, the Tories finally admitted that they have no real vision for Britain, that they are ashamed of what ideology they have left, and that they are determined to fight the 2015 general election timidly, and on Labour’s terms.

A Strong Economy For A Strong NHS. Have the Tories forgotten the manifold other reasons for wanting a strong economy – rising living standards, more consumer choice, powerful new innovations, material progress, a more secure and influential country? Better public services can certainly be a symptom of a strong economy, a positive indicator that things are going well. But that is not what David Cameron’s Conservative Party is saying.

The Tories are openly – even proudly – suggesting that the whole purpose of a strong economy, the very reason we should bother to get up in the morning, is to earn money to give to the government in taxes so that we can have public services like the NHS delivered back to us.

According to this poisonous mindset, we should not strive for the sake of our selves, our families, our friends and neighbours, for the satisfaction of a job well done or to leave the world a better place for the next generation. That would be tawdry. No, Britain should limit its national time horizon, our vested interest in the future, to the lifespan of its most selfish citizens, those who believe they are being progressive and compassionate by building a country that serves its own public services rather than the other way around.

The banner proclaims, in bold capital letters, that the Tories have lost their way under the leadership of David Cameron and George Osborne, and that a majority of the Conservative party is now firmly committed to fighting the 2015 general election on Labour Party terms and traditionally Labour issues.

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British Politicians Ignore The Big Picture – But We Are To Blame

Samuel Hooper13 Comments

The Prime Ministers Visits Pensioners In Westeminster

 

In recent months, this blog has grown increasingly exasperated with the lack of anything resembling a coherent, overarching vision for Britain’s future offered by any of the main political parties, with the possible exception of UKIP (whose vision is very specific but not always appealing).

As Britain stumbled out of the financial crisis and Great Recession, we seem to have gone back to the days of fumbling along as a country, lurching from crisis to crisis, permeated throughout with a sense of “managed decline” rather than the positivity and optimism of more crusading governments – Margaret Thatcher’s first two administrations, or even New Labour under Tony Blair.

Yesterday, this sense that our national ambition appears to have evaporated, and that the people vying for the office of Prime Minister are little more than dull technocrats who want to minimise risk and wield power just for the sake of it, led me to ask:

What would it take for a British politician to tear up the current playbook (written by risk-averse party strategists so deeply buried in polling data that they have lost all sight of the bigger picture) and actually speak honestly and from the heart about the challenges facing Britain, and how we will overcome and surpass those challenges together?

What would it take for a British politician to take the moral high road and not seek to play one group of us off against another, instead reminding us that we are all united through our British citizenship, and that our fates – from the richest homeowner in Knightsbridge to the poorest council house tenant in Wolverhampton – are inextricably bound together, for better or worse?

What would it take for a British politician to suggest that as a country we might actually consider setting our national ambitions slightly higher than just having decent public services, that the country of Britten and Shakespeare and Berners-Lee and Hawking is still able to forge and reshape the world in a way that no other nation can?

Today, in the course of being heckled by a forum of elderly voters, David Cameron made unfortunate reference to his potential legacy. The Telegraph’s Matthew Holehouse reports in today’s election live blog:

Ill-advisedly, Cameron referred to his “political epitaph” in his speech.

“I don’t just want my political epitaph to read that I balanced the books, and cleared up the mess I inherited.

I am here today because I want a different kind of Britain,” he said.

Okay, so David Cameron wants to do more than balance the budget – probably just as well, considering the fact that even this basic accomplishment seems to be beyond the reach of either Labour or the Conservatives at present. But what is it that Cameron wants to achieve? What is this “different kind of Britain” that he wants to bring about?

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The Tories Are Fighting The 2015 General Election On Labour’s Turf

Samuel Hooper5 Comments

2015 General Election Tory Conservative Campaign Public Services Austerity

 

Defend our precious public services! All hands to battle stations in defence of our vital public services! Did you know that the 2015 general election is all about our public services?

The endless platitudes about the vital importance of “public services” to all our lives are starting to sound a lot like the ludicrous list of new government-approved slogans and phrases for the North Korean people to shout in praise of their Dear Leader.

Following George Osborne’s 2015 Budget, yet another let-down for small government conservatives and believers in fiscal responsibility, this blog took the Conservative Party to task for failing to extol the virtues of a smaller state and greater personal liberty during the election campaign. And today’s latest motivational email from the Conservative Party only serves to hammer home the extent to which David Cameron’s Conservative Party are on the ideological back foot.

From the latest Conservative Party fundraising email:

Together we can deliver.

A Britain that lives within its means.

Reducing the deficit so we can keep investing in vital public services.

Newsflash, CCHQ: life is not all about public services.

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With The 2015 Budget, It’s Finally Time For Labour To Put Up Or Shut Up

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

George Osborne Ed Balls Budget 2015

 

David Cameron’s Conservative Party may only be pretending to care about small government, strutting around in the borrowed robes of fiscal responsibility. But in their feeble reaction to George Osborne’s 2015 budget, the Labour Party – much like the proverbial emperor – have been caught wearing no ideological clothes, and possessing no real principles at all.

We have now experienced nearly five years of coalition government, a Conservative and Liberal Democrat joint venture, and throughout that time the Labour Party has squealed and bitterly protested every single action taken by the government to restore Britain to any kind of good fiscal balance.

One might therefore reasonably expect the Labour Party to be ready with a compelling, explainable and measurable alternative raft of policies to fix Britain as the 2015 general election rapidly approaches. But not only does it seem that Ed Miliband’s Labour Party have no alternative vision for Britain beyond carping about Tory meanness, neither are they willing to commit to reversing any of the coalition government’s spending plans, including those announced in yesterday’s Budget.

The Telegraph reports that Ed Balls will not commit to undoing a single Tory spending measure should Ed Miliband win the keys to 10 Downing Street on 7 May:

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, admitted that Labour would not reverse George Osborne’s Budget measures, including the flagship measures on savings and Help to Buy.

Speaking in response to yesterday’s Budget, he said “nothing had changed” because the Chancellor had produced an “quite empty” Budget, meaning Labour “wouldn’t need to reverse any of it” if the party was successful at the general election.

“There’s nothing … I need to reverse. What I will reverse are deeper spending cuts in the next three years than the last five.”

Pushed as to whether he would retain Mr Osborne’s widely welcomed plans to spare millions of savers tax and to provide new “Help to Buy Isas” – savings accounts for first time buyers which would be topped up with government cash – Mr Balls told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he would, adding: “I think the Help to Buy Isa is an interesting idea. We’re not going to abolish it.”

This leaves two rather burning questions: why would anyone in their right mind vote for Labour now that Ed Balls has admitted that he would copy all of George Osborne’s ideas? And isn’t it about time the Labour Party apologised to Conservative and right-wing voters for having said such horrible things about the Evil Tories when they secretly agreed with David Cameron and George Osborne the whole time?

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Why George Osborne’s 2015 Budget Was Such A Big Disappointment

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

BRITAIN-BBC-MEDIA-STRIKE

 

Budget 2015 was yet another let-down for fiscal conservatives and opponents of big government, not that this beleaguered group have come to expect any better after five years of Conservative-LibDem coalition rule.

The fact that the Tories are actually happy that the media is reporting that government will “only” shrink back to 2000-era levels (when New Labour ruled the roost) is definitive proof that Britain is not still in thrall to Thatcherism and pro-market conservatism, as some left wing commentators suggest, but rather is clinging petulantly and fearfully to Gordon Brown-style Big Government largesse.

This blog has little sympathy with a modern Conservative Party too afraid to forcefully make the case for small government and lower public spending, and will continue to criticise David Cameron and George Osborne for their timidity in this regard for as long as they remain in office. But the Conservative Party does not operate in a vacuum, and should not bear all of the blame.

When in government, Conservatives have to deal with a public that is used to big government, collectivism and intrusive state involvement in almost every aspects of their lives. Britain never had the pioneering, fiercely independent spirit that characterises America, and the modern institutions that emerged from the post-war consensus (the welfare state and National Health Service) only shifted our political centre of gravity further to the left.

Thus, the BBC’s Robert Peston can ask with a straight face, when analysing George Osborne’s 2015 Budget (emphasis added):

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