The Tories are right to be thinking about how to buy time once they are in government

oldrightie

There will be plenty of time. This horrific scorched earth behaviour will not be easily forgotten. The blatant doga before Country will haunt Labour for many years. I hope I may never live to see a Labour mess ever again.

oldrightie

typing error again. "dogma".

Fraser Allonby

Do you think they could get Fraser to author it? That'll scare people.

Ray

Spot on, James.

Cameron has got to tell people straight - both before, during and after the next General Election - that 'things ain't pretty; and I will have to make some pretty unpopular choices before they ever get to look pretty again'.

seb

We need a Truth Commission similar to the one established in South Africa. Relics of the ousted régime could atone for their crimes by publicly apologising to their victims - all of us. Draconian punishments need not be inflicted and a reconciliation of perpetrators and victims would help a traumatised nation move on.

Mike, Brighton

In 1997 the Tories left Labour a "Golden Inheritance", in 2010 Labour will leave the Tories a "Ghastly Inheritance". Blair could bumble on not upsetting anyone, delivering very little and hiding behind a fog of spin and fluff. He won three elections on the basis of fluff before he was found out.

Cameron will have no such luck, but if he has the guts to deliver he has the chance to reshape and redirect the UK for the better after more than a decade of Labour

richardj

Sounds familiar - the country will feel relieved to have got rid of the unelected and incompetent Brown and the hangers on which will help.

Rhoda Klapp

Unfortunately those few policies which they have espoused will be nothing like radical enough. I really don't think they need to be wasting time thinking up excuses and explanation for failures they haven't achieved yet.

Patrick

Step 1
Doomsday Book of inherited Labour disaster

Step 2
Reform the BBC. Everything that follows will be 10 times easier without that monster on their backs.

strapworld

Personally I cannot see the Labour Party getting many seats but having said that, Once the Labour Party have got over their massive defeat, they will, yet again, prove that they are real terriers in opposition.

So, it is a damned wise move to have a Boris style audit of every department so that in each case, where the Labour opposition has a go, they can be knocked back in the very same way they are still blaming the tories NOW!

But, this time, the people should have been given all the facts, so that their sympathy will be with the Tory Government.

Perhaps the tories will not have a Blair type honeymoon, I think it will be more of a Brown/Labour long hard divorce, and that will be far far worse for the Labour Party both locally and Nationally.

drakes drum

They could be reminded every time taxes have to rise it is another BROWN TAX

TGF UKIP

"The country will be on the verge of an energy crisis as soon as the economy starts growing again." Right, James, but also partly wrong. If we get through the remainder of this Winter without a major breakdown at one or more of our clapped out power stations and tens of thousands of homes without electricity, it will be a minor miracle. Moreover, we will be in, not on the verge of, an energy crisis when the economy starts growing again.

Why? Simple - power stations are huge plants that take literally years to construct, quite apart from the time taken in the planning and political debate process.

A dozen plants, coal and nuclear, will be closing during the next decade but in the case of coal it is most pressing because of required compliance with the EU's Large Cobustion Plant Directive. Four plants comprising 6.4 gigawatts are scheduled for closure before the end of 2012 (S. Times 28th Dec 08)

Should any Coffee Housers be in any doubt on just how unready and unfit for government the Cameron Tories are, I urge them to look at the Tory Party website and its entries on Energy Policy, including its brand new energy paper.

I would also again make the general point that so great will the nation's problems be, they will require radical conservative action. However, stacked against any conservative party embarking on such a course will be the entire trade union movement, the broadcasting media together with a goodly slice of the Press, the Labour and Liberal parties and the whole of the civil service UNLESS that newly governing conservative party has a specific popular mandate.

That the Cameron Tories choose not to pursue a conservative mandate to still run and campaign on what is basically a social democrat (Blue Labour) basis, provides to me the best possible evidence that they have neither wish nor intention to govern as a conservative party.

oldtimer

No doubt it will be desirable to do this, if only as a starting benchmark for their government (if elected). But they cannot rest at that.

By the time the next election is held, the Conservatives should have an absolutely clear idea of many of the measures they wish to implement, and a qualified idea of many others - the qualification being the dire state of the government`s finances.

These should not preclude fundamental and needed reforms to the tax system, including removing the stupidities in marginal tax rates, raising tax thresholds on the low paid, reducing taxes on jobs and promoting incentives for business investment and wealth creation. There will need to be offsetting tax increases on consumption via changes to VAT.

I would hope that radical measures along these lines would be included in a first budget. The UK will have to earn its way out of recession - that will not be achieved by piling on more and more government spending and borrowing but by competing effectively in the world economy. It will be a long and hard road.

Verity

I agree, UKIP, and that is why they must lose this next election with Dave at the helm, to ensure that he never holds the reins of power. With new Leader - my choice would be John Redwood - the Tories can then call for, and win, a vote of No Confidence 18 months into the new tottering, weak socialist regime. They should then manage to be in power for at least 20 years.

Rhoda Klapp - precisely.

Hysteria

wot Rhoda, TGF and Verity said!!!

Central Office blog monitors - are you getting this message? Labour Lite/pink conservatism is NOT GOING TO FIX THIS MESS !!!!

TomTom

Call in the OECD or IMF as soon as Labour leaves office to review matters.

Tiberius

Daily Telegraph, any day in 1986: "Cameron fails to plan for energy crisis in 2010 shock".

Daily Telegraph, May 2014: "Redwood elected PM with dream majority".

I'm off to now to try and judge the size of the cork Heffer's sitting on this morning.

Frank P

Mike Brighton

"He won three elections on the basis of fluff before he was found out."

Found out? Fooowuuundd ooutt! He was kicked out! - By his own co-conspirators to make way for their "true heir to John Smith" - delayed by several years in the opinion of most old Labourites. He was never anything more than a Trojan horse who went on cantering himself after his belly had discharged its cargo. And what did that cargo comprise? What all viscera discharges eventually, of course!

The electorate that voted them in was a mixed bag of the credulous, the deluded and the baleful counter-culture warriors who are still rampant and will not be denied. There is no guarantee that we won't get more of the same old, same old, when they do it again. And considering that Cameron has implied time and time again that he is Blair's heir - what difference will it make anyway? We are about to enter an era of British political lunacy, to coincide with American political lunacy and with cloud cuckoo land global economics to boot. Add Europe and the latest machinations towards a 'single currency' and you have a very scary scenario. Start growing your own veggy folks; at least the Greenies have got that bit right. You don't have to breed pigs as we did during WW2; there is a large pork factory adjacent to Parliament Square - already overflowing with oinks. Ere long the mob will be spit roasting them, so join the queue now folks, or you'll finish up with just the trotters and maybe a dollop of braun (probably with a capital P - the little shit)! Actually I remember braun being very tasty between two wodges of mother's home baked bread. And the crackling was better in those days too, but I was too young to avail myself of that - in one sense anyway

Paul B

Sorry the above should be addressed to Hysteria

hysteria

Paul B..
no idea to what you refer - sorry

Verity

Frank P - I think it is critical for the future of our country that the Tories do not win the next election.

The heir to Blair, who tacitly acknowledged charges of Labour sleaze by wittering on about "decontaminating the brand" - as though a belief system is a "brand" and other vacuous pr speak, will be defrocked and we will get a Conservative leader in. Hopefully John Redwood. I now believe Cameron is not just not up to the job, but dangerous to our liberty.

Labour will be able to stagger on for a year or 18 months before falling on its knees and a successful vote of No Confidence is called and another GE undertaken, which the Tories, with a new, canny, genuinely Conservative leader will win. Then we can get our liberties and our freedom of speech restored. Perhaps also the right to own firearms.

Ideally, a Conservative PM would, at the stroke of a pen, cancel every one of the 3,000 plus hectic new laws the socialists brought in.

Stephen Green

"Hit the ground running"? I would imagine so -"running for the exit".
Cameron has no more idea as to what to do about the current crisis than Macavity.
Leave it to Brussels - Nanny knows best.

Verity

Stephen Green - hit the ground running for the exit! Ha ha ha ha!

George Laird

Dear All

So the first task of the Tories in Government is to do nothing.

They want to buy time, so what have they been doing other than drinks on a billionaire's boat?

Answers on a postage to the usual address!

Obama hits the ground sprinting, Cameron and the Eton cabal obviously will have their manservants running the bath and ironing the Times flat.

What does it say that "future" Government time will be used to produce the "Blame" dossier?

Will it be structured like the "dodgy" Iraq dossier?

Pathetic, roll on a hung Parliament.

Finally, the Tories have no policies, this is jist of this story, if they did they wouldn't waste time on Blame.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Frank P

Verity, it does seem that the current UK administration are, because they think they are doomed, operating a scorched earth policy for the next administration to inherit. So in one way it would be poetic justice if the idiot electorate they have cultivated and bribed vote them back into power; then, as you say, they couldn't possibly last another full term with the chaos that is already manifesting itself here and on the Continent. This might precipitate the return of real conservatism here, rather than she tepid toryism that the Cameroons have constructed.

However, there seems not much doubt that the US is in the spell of neo-socialism and likely to remain so for some time - maybe even two terms. When you consider what has happened in the UK during the past 12 years, that is mind numbing. The hippies have at last got their man aboard the gravy train - big-time, or so they think. Civilisations evolve and then go, sometimes slowly, sometimes suddenly. The collapse of the globalised economy, which already had so many elements inimical to the UK, even before the proverbial hit the fan, may indicate a very rapid end to the Anglo-American hegemony. Islamic jihad will be invigorated and facilitated by these events. Iran doesn’t need a nuke. The West is undergoing assisted Euthanasia. Bring Mark Steyn’s demographical take into the equation and the prospect is even worse. And talking of St Mark of Steyn, did you catch this piece in the NR today?

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODljYzM3YTc0ODA4MmVmMjI2YzVmNGM3NWU3ODE2NWI=

He's back on form after the traumas of the last year. Pity he wasn't born in the US, he'd make a great POTUS. On the other hand, as that doesn't seem to be a debarment anymore if you just verbally state that your Mum dropped you in Hawaii ....

Verity

Frank P - an interesting and well-observed (well, what would one expect from an ex-copper?) post with which I agree. Obviously, how long the American left's infatuation with Obonkers lasts will be key to all the economies in the developed world. How long can he do the smoke and mirrors thing of looking competent? Probably, sadly, as long as Tony Blair - who was also nicknamed Bambi by the press, oddly enough, in a sinister kind of way - got away with his Wizard of Oz performance for a decade.

I went to the St Mark of Steyn link and thought it a little laboured. It doesn't have the fizz and light-hearted cleverness as in the days of yore ... but given what he has been subjected to by the Canadian National Race/Fascist Party, I'm amazed that he's still in the ring. I think it will take him awhile to find his insouciant brilliance again.

He mentioned a cut in payroll tax, and anyone interested can read Thomas Sowell's excellent column on this in Townhall.com For some reason, I can't link to it. Anyway, Mr Sowell suggests scrapping all those rescue packages that will take years to move through the intestines of the US Congress and simply cut payroll taxes by X% immediately, thus giving people extra money to spend and stimulate the economy within two weeks (as most Americans are paid biweekly).

Hysteria

Verity/Frank - there is something else going on in the minds of the public though.

We in the states have had a massive stimulus in the lowering of gasoline prices at the pump - some $200 per month or more for many people.

This has not fed through into the economic indicators (sales)

But of course directionally I agree a tax cut is the way to go - we are better spenders of money than a government.

By the way - not much talk of Brown's fanous jibe at the Tories "unfunded tax cuts"......

Verity

Hysteria, that's an interesting point about some people saving as much as $200 a month in lower gas prices and it not feeding through.

If you can access it, I think you will find Thomas Sowell's column in Townhall.com very interesting, because he thinks the impact would be immediate. Americans wouldn't even have to wait until next payday because they would begin spending on their credit cards immediately, confident that they could meet the payments.

It's certainly a much lighter solution that all this heavy-handed boondogglery so beloved of DC. Mr Sowell's a director of the Hoover Institute, so has credentials, to say the least.

pat mcgroin

the best plan for action is cameron keeps on with his blue labour policy, win the election do the mega audit, produce the book, then say all bets are off as we didn't know it was this bad. with the evidence to show the shit creek we are up, there wouldn't be any complaining.