Brown to Britain: "Crisis? Which crisis?!"

8 December 2007

When Jim Callaghan, the last Labour Prime Minister to lose a British general election, returned from an overseas summit in sunny climes to widespread winter turmoil back in Blighty, he was reported to have asked: “Crisis? What crisis?”.

But, despite all his problems, and for all the catastrophic polls, Mr Brown is far from finished. The Conservatives are still stuck around the 40% mark; given that Labour can wait another two and half years before having to call the next general election, David Cameron, the Tory leader, cannot afford to be complacent. If he wishes to leverage Mr Brown’s current crisis into a sustainable advantage for his party, he must move now.

It would be a mistake for the Tories to try to compete with Mr Brown by stressing their supposed superior competence: the public is growing tired of the politics of managerialism, especially when it doesn’t really trust any politician to run things well (with good reason). The first stage for the Tories was to improve their presentation, update their image and earn the right to a hearing; all that they have done – and done well. Now they must capture voters’ imagination with a visionary series of policies to improve public services and people’s quality of life.

The Conservatives have made an encouraging start with an education policy that is genuinely radical. The system, modelled on the Swedish school reforms, would enable anyone to set up a school and receive funding from the state for every pupil they admit. If implemented with gusto, this supply-side reform would revolutionise British education; regrettably, the timid Tories would rather nobody noticed how far-reaching their policy would be.

They have decided to emphasise instead other parts of their proposals, including many prescriptive measures that smack of the worst kind of Bevanite centralism. Every school in the country, for example, would be required to use synthetic phonics to teach children to read under a Conservative government; so much for localism and allowing schools to set their own course.

In most areas, the Conservatives remain far too cautious. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, should map out how to reduce a tax burden that is now larger than Germany’s, rather than just tinkering with the tax system. Mr Cameron must flesh out what he means by “welfare reform” and not be deterred by faint-hearts in his shadow cabinet such as David Davis who think that it is too hard. But the area most crying out for some radicalism is health.