What's the Tories' economic plan?

cuffleyburgers

Never have an opposition had such a juicy target - waste, socialistic style redistribution, failue on a huge scale, plus a muppet in number 10.

We rehearse daily on this site the litany of waste, cock ups and sheer stupidity of Mr Brown's tenure - and in terms that are easily capable of being sold to an electorate fed up to the back teeth of labour's lies and incompetence.

But Messrs Cameron and Osborne never fail to sound like they're weaselling, reluctant to pronounce.

They shouldn't be. They are making people think they have nothing to say.

The electorate is ready to hear someone come along and say:

"right, for 11 years the socialists have squandered over a trillion pounds throwing money in all directions trying to micromanage the entire economy and the result has been been that with the first economic shock to come along the whole thing has collapsed around our ears.

Our policy will be to spend where necessary to achieve reforms that will enable education, the heath service and the police to function in a way which suits people not to suit whitehall departments' press offices. The flavour of the reforms will be to remove layers of management put in to suit the target culture, and get back to managing operations sensibly. We also intend to reform welfare so that it once again returns to being a safety net for the unfortunate not a lifesyle choice for the importunate and we intend to cut the public sector payroll, in particular the quangos that have mushroomed under this government to no visble effect effect on the public debt.

We will cancel a number of expensive and useless projects, foremost among them the identity theft database and trident.

Things we would have done differently? We wouldn't have given away our EU rebate or our gold reserves, and we wouldn't have increased GPs pay for a reduced working week. We wouldn't have created all these quangos. We wouldn't have have introduced tax cedits but we would have sought to help the poorest by more effective means such as raising the threshholds and simplifying tax and NI arrangements at the lowest end of the scale so as to eliminate the perverse incentives introduced by Labour."

I think that is the basis of a compelling message.

I am available for further consultancy services if required by Smith Square :-)

Faceless Bureaucrat

Smith Square? - don't hold your breath for a response from that location...

Doc S

cuffleyburgers - 30,000 GPs being paid (at most) £10K more than they were before the new contract - I make that £0.3bn - about 1% of the money spent on the quangocracy, less than 1% of the money hidden from the balance sheet in PFI and a drop in the ocean compared to the cost of the new client state.

Sure, the GPs did very well out of the contract, but I don't think they're responsible to any major degree for the parlous state of the books under New Labour.

David Boycott

The fundamental difference must be to get people back to work. The legions on the dole, incapacity benefit, non-jobs in the pubic sector and pointless training schemes need to be in productive employment. The way to do this is to make employment more attractive for the employee AND the employer. We must abolish NI payments for both employee and employer below 10k and ensure that the personal tax allowance is no less than 10k.

This would in the long term pay for itself, especially when accompanied by the abolition of the ludicrous - and mis-named - tax credits system.

Nicholas

I also wonder why DC and GO don't go for the jugular as suggested by cuffleyburgers excellent post. I am beginning to suspect that there is much of New Labour that they plan to emulate or continue. That is a terrible thought. But they have been lukewarm about most things, including civil rights, and sometimes come across as being more woolly, green and Liberal Democrat than the Liberal Democrats.

I wish there was stronger rhetoric and more of the attack dog in this pair. Some good old plain speaking and honesty, calling the socialist media's bluff by insisting on a downright non-PC debate about Britain would find resonance with the majority. Where are the Conservative values being reflected?

James Allen

I would like to see the Tories offer a clear and coherent critique of the failings of Labour (namely their over-reliance on the state and taxation as the means of achieving policy objectives), and offer a radical series of reforms intended to liberate the individual to enable him/her to achieve his/her maximum potential. I believe this must include major reforms of the NHS, education and welfare systems, to transform the Government from being the provider of public services to merely the commissioner of services for those unable to pay for themselves. From my perspective the run-down of the NHS up until 1997 was the Tories' single greatest failing, which it has taken the public 10 years to forgive. The Tories need to be more bold in setting out how they will improve these services whilst at the same time cutting the amount of public money being lavished upon them. (Answer: by giving the patient / pupil / jobseeker more choice, by increasing the opportunity for service providers to compete and innovate, by providing greater incentives to work and save (lowering taxes on the lowest incomes), by trusting the individual to spend their money more efficiently than the Government etc etc).

maas101

If an election were just around the corner then all of the above would be valid. Barring a miracle there is no possibility of that before 2010 so the Tories are wisely holding their powder dry. Why should they lay out a plan for good government when Gordo will just try and steal it and claim it for his own?

Government-in-waiting they may be, but 2 years is a very long time in politics.

Tiberius

Osborne's interview should reassure his doubters. Once again he sets out his long term aims, which should cheer any Tory supporter.

With the books, in 2010, likely to contain more red than a giant punnet of strawberries, it is reassuring to see that this policy can be given priority. This must mean Osborne has identified preferred areas for cuts of which most of us on here would approve.

This early-doors policy, along with its sibling pronouncements on eduction and welfare, will start the long job of restoring structure to a society badly in need of rebuilding.

TGF UKIP

Cuffleyburgers, with the exception of your dismissal of Trident, I agree with every word of a brilliant analysis and agenda.

And Peter - "the Tories storming into larger and larger poll leads." True but an analytically dispassionate hack would also be pointing out just how soft and patchy those poll leads are.

Voters will rightly always be reluctant to vote for parties and leaders who don't seem to really believe in very much. Conviction politics is what convinces electors and if these people really were conservatives they would not just have no difficulty, they would be positively enthusiastic, to present a conservative case along the lines set out by Cuffleyburgers above.

That's the point, though, these people are not conservatives they are simply a Tory brand of social democrats who have no wish to steer too far from the existing path.

Tim

The Tories need to communicate to the voters at large that they can't afford five more years of Brown and Labour, whether Osborne (who has never had a proper job) is the man to do that I very much doubt it.

As Obama has realised in the US, a fresh change is all very well but someone with experience settles the voters nerves.

j.finnigan

"I'm tempted to say that Conservative governments are normally elected to clear up the mess left by Labour governments." George Osborne HERE HERE

John Page

I'd like to see the Tories start to pick off individual unpopular policies and say, "We'll repeal this" - like fortnightly collections, for example.

emma2000

Get rid of every unelected, unnecessary Regional Assembly, that should save quite a bit and all of the above too.

Verity

Every quango axed in the neck, without anaesthetic. Pink slips, closing down, sorry the taxpayers don't want to give you a final bonus. 'Bye.

But this is fantasyland, because Dave and his EUSSR One Worlders are keen to get their feet under the table. They're not interested in the voters.

That's why Dave developed his lists of privileged candidates -the alarmingly undemocratic A-listers. Never mind what the Tory voters and local associations want, Dave wants to look good for the Nomenklatura he hopes to join.

PJ

Some strange comments above.

Doc S claims that GPs gained 'at most' £10k from the new contract, whereas the figures clearly show that it was in excess of £30k. Even that doesn't show the full extent of the cost increase as out-of-hours cover increased exponentially in cost.

As for the 'run down of the NHS before 1997' - this a myth. The only party ever to cut spending on the NHS was Labour (pre 1979). Margaret Thatcher more than doubled NHS spending and finally lost patience with the lack of increased output for the increased input and hence (belatedly) introduced limited market reforms. Labour promptly reversed these only to re-introduce them later.