Cameron dumps Labour spending plans

Hereford

At last! So all the words from Coffee Housers and the continuous "Angry of Hereford" writing to Cameron through the Tory website has paid off.

Thank goodness :o)

Anthony

Well done Cameron...about time too!

Geoff

To be credible, we now have to outline how:

(A) We can go further than labour on welfare - in my view this means means-testing all benefits

(B) Show how we can encourage people onto private health insurance - NHS spend is a huge amount of the spending growth since 1997 and the only credible way of bringing this back down is getting more affluent people out of tax-funded care

These are the 2 key routes to the smaller state he is promising. Without them, he has nothing.

luke

I hear we are about to get a Mori poll cutting the lead to 3pts.

OUCH!

He needs something!

Bob.India

Alleluia!

Praguetory

Yippee. Vive la difference.

David

Watch the poll rating plummet as voters get told about losing hospitals and schools.

teledu

At last. Even Labour had jettisoned Labour's spending plans!
It was wrong in the first place for the Conservatives to align themselves in this way to nuLabour.
People want reasons to vote tory. Once they've got a few, such as a different approach to spending, taxation and welfare benefits, (how about promising an EU referendum?) they'll turn away from the Great Helmsman in droves I reckon.

hysteria

at last....

Ed B

Geoff

These are two key routes to a 4th Labour term.

Don't frighten the horses. All in good time.

Tiberius

It was never going to be never, Pete, and it should certainly never be too early.

It is all about timing, and that is down to strategy at the Tory high table. The discontent in the country at large, judging from comment boards and blogs, would seem to suggest now is a good time to take off the gloves.

wonderfulforhisage

Peter, you wrtie "Now, this marks a massive strategic shift for the Cameroons."

Oh no it doesn't. (with the greatest respect, of couse).

His strategy of 'Follow the Focus Group' is still in place. This is a tactical shift.

A strategic shift would involve donning a 'Leadership' mantle and Hilton would never allow that.

Nicholas

Even Andrew Neil on DP started on about schools and hospitals and punctured Tory talk of waste by claiming that every opposition had promised to cut waste when in government and failed to deliver. Is that true? His glee at the Mori 3% lead poll was undisguised.

Max Kaye

About time too.

Draughtsman

David @ 11.53 - yes quite right. Brown is always likely to take this time honoured line. Cameron and Osborne must hammer home to the public how Brown is squandering our hard earned money, and that balancing the government's books and cutting taxes can be achieved by eliminating this hideous waste. The excellent Taxpayers Alliance is always highlighting this and David Craig's book Squandered should be required reading on the subject.

David

"Cameron and Osborne must hammer home to the public how Brown is squandering our hard earned money, and that balancing the government's books and cutting taxes can be achieved by eliminating this hideous waste"

It's not going to work. People have heard it before, this nebuous concept of waste. Oppositions can't come up with anything concrete until in office and they actually have to deal with the various services involved.
On the other hand, protecting schools and hospitals connects.

While Fraser et al will be celebrating, we can kiss goodbye to the poll leads.

Still, ideological purity in opposition is better than being in office......

cuffleyburgers

There are plenty of unpopular and expensive things that can be cut too, such as ID cards, the olimp-pricks and even Trident as well as making a noise about expensively bollocksed up NHS computer programmes, general surveillance, recording of all internet communications and of course the massive expence of being in the EU. Plus the vast increase in numbers and cost of quangos which could be reversed with no one noticing.

Brown must be put on the spot and made to justify every penny he spends on our behalf. It is not good enough to repeat 7 times "do you admit that boom and bust is not ended?".

How about asking seven different questions with egregious examples of waste.

Get the lying, useless bastard on the run.

Longshot

On the subject of the NHS etc. Thanks to the Brown/Hewitt pay settlement for doctors our local hospital can't afford new X-ray equipment, but the doctors (and I live next door to one) can afford loads of big new BMWs and can come home from work at 3-30pm every day. That is typical of what happens in state run organisations - they are all run for the benefit of the management and employees - the customers/taxpayers come a long way last. And "David", it's self-serving cynicism of the kind that you express that has dragged politics down into the gutter - I think you are Mandy in disguise.

Clare

I think many people will welcome the return to economics that makes sense. Brown's plans for the future certainly don't. But the huge vote of the Labour client state is always going to be a problem.

seb

The bold decision not to match Labour's plans to terminally max out on the credit cards will take a colossal effort to become a vote-winner. Of course, it's the only thing a rational party could do given Brown's mess, but Labour is congenitally pre-determined to see it as boarded up schools and hospital closures. Manduja won't be working on spinning this in Salford and Gateshead tomorrow morning. He's started already.

The Tories headache is this, is it not, that they are trying to wrest power from Labour before we descend to Zimbabwean levels of penury, but are doing so in a nation where millions of voters don't care a fig about the national debt or levels of tax or think the IMF is a medical complaint to do with flatulence.

Huw Thornton

As other contributors have said, "about time!"

Now there's something to fight about.