Should Cameron have told us how he will do it?

Irene

Did you really expect him to lay everything out yesterday? I certainly didn't.

J R Hartley

Who in their right-mind would show their hand on their policy details at this stage?

You only had to see Yvette Cooper's performance on Question Time last night to get a taste of how Labour will fight dirty, lying and twisting on any detail they get.

Sadly some dyed-in-the-wool types in the audience still believe it. They're re-fighting class wars from 30 years ago - despite what Crewe & Nantwich taught Ms Cooper's husband about these tactics.

Give them nothing to distort.

Malcolm

No, certainly not. Why hand good ideas to a loathsome, vile and spiteful government that ran out of their own ideas a long time ago? I think we have to trust them on this. Frankly, I will support almost anything the Conservatives will or won't talk about, just to be sure that we are well and truly shot of this bunch of NuLiebour misfits at the next GE. Another 5 years of these lunatics is just not something I can stomach.

Peter From Maidstone

Why did you expect him to provide answers to any of the things he described? That makes no political sense, and it makes no sense that you expected him to.

Publius

I wish you'd learn how to use the expression "beg the question".

Dorothy Wilson

Give him time! Surely, the "how" question should be directed at Brown and NuLabour. They keep telling us they will reduce the massive deficit they have landed us with in 4 years. There has not been the slighest indication of how. To add to the mystery Brown is still throwing sweeties around as bribes to the voters with no indication of how he will pay for them.

Chris lancashire

Cameron did as much as was needed yesterday. But you are right; we the electorate, are fed up with being sold "visions" with no possibility of implementation. We will need to see some concrete policies pre-election.
And I am afraid that one policy which has been announced which should be dropped for now and replaced as an "aspiration" is any change in IHT.

Maggie

No, he was just fine. I'm sick of the brutality and coarseness of the age of Blair/Brown and Cameron held out a hope for the return of civilisation.

DavidDP

"But, the most effective party conference speeches are broad brush sales pitches, not miopic think tank lectures. The key is to present a vision; it is a rhetorical exercise. "

Precisely. Otherwise you may as well ask them to read aloud from a manifesto.

That said, the policy had several meaty policy speeches anyway. The fact that Cameron focused on the vision doesn't take away from that.

Malcolm

Yes, Mrs Balls' QT performance was frankly pitiful. Her utterances these days are just laughable. A couple of days ago she was wittering on about 5m unemployed if the Conservatives get in. What she doesn't know she simply makes up. NuLiebour are stuck in the past, they are a busted flush, they are bereft of any sensible ideas, they are a dead government and soon they will be consigned to the dustbin of politics.

david

In a speech that was Patience Strong delivered by Dale Winton, what do you expect? Cameron can't say 'cos he dont know. Gerald Warner has got him bang-to-rights.

TrevorsDen

Dorothy Wilson makes my point for me. Brown has no way to make all his policies work and we have his track record of failure to judge him by as well. Brown gives no indication of how is policies can be afforded. Money to fund his care home idea will come from the NHS budget.

Steve Richards' load of drivel is as always a 'must miss'

Doug

More unfair criticism. One day there are complaints that Cameron's speech was policy lite while the rest of the shadow cabinet announced policy after policy. The next day Cameron is accused of carrying the party on his back and that the shadow cabinet do nothing. You can't have it both ways.

Vulture

OK, so we don't know exactly what Dave will do. But here's a short checklist of things he sure as hell will NOT do:

Q: Will he hold the referendum on Lisbon that Bruin promised but failed to do?:
A: Er, no.

Q: Will he dissolve the Quangocracy such as the Heath and Safety Commission that has meshed us in a steely net of nonsense, so that - for example -children can't take photos of each other at school? : A: 'Fraid not.

Q: Will he dissolve the Police service and restore the Police Force under elected Chief Constables who will get officers back on the streets protecting people like the Pilkingtons?: A: Er, we'll get back to you.

Q: Will he withdraw Britain from Human Rights legislation under which we pay for terrorists and murders to live in comfort at our expense?: A: Could be a bit tricky.

Q: Will he purge the anti-British BBC?
A: That's a negative.

Q:Will he fire Tory troughers such as the horrible Francis Maude who was squatting behind him throughout his speech?
A: No, again.

Q: Will he fight Islamification?
A: Not especially.

Once Bruin has put us all our of his misery I fear we shall discover that our Dave is a squatter, not a fighter.

chris as usual

@ J R Hartley

If that question time audience was a cross section of British, let alone English, people then I am a Chinaman (no offence intended).

The BBC continue to be a problem.

Fergus Pickering

Well, MrRichards, you will have to wait and see, like the rest of us. There are two people who might be Prime Minister next June. Which do you want? Brown or Cameron? There isn't anyone else. Brown or Cameron? What do you think? More Brown? Do you really? God help us all.

Tim Hedges

Myopic, surely.
I don't suppose he'll transform Britain in quite the way he says but the direction is good - much better than not trying. Now for something on Europe & repatriation of powers, please?

Boudicca

Yesterday Cameron set out his Mission Statement and strategy - the policies to needed to deliver these will be kept fairly vague until after the pre-Budget Report and the General Election campaign.

Too much detail now, and Labour will either steal the ideas or start the lying campaign to discredit them.

Dave B

I loved the speech. I don't think our politicians make the philosophical case, Society vs Big Government, often enough. And what better to set up the pre-election debate?

andrew

"Gordon Brown has no vision"... ha ha ha, your joke is clever but inaccurate. He has partial vision. Not no vision. But well done sticking the knife in anyway.

JONNY

So many people just don't get it.
Frankly all this policy policy policy guff perpetrated by Friend Richards is for the birds.
Give me time and I'll give me 50 new policy initiatives by lunch.
And no one gives a damn. It's Personalities stupid.
The game's gone presidential.
Who do you want to run your country - Gordon Brown or David Cameron? Simple as that. People not bits of paper.
That's why Cameron is winning.
And will win bigger as the election battle hots up.

Dean

I regard myself as being on the centre right, and frequently take issue with the anti-public services, free market fundamentalist rhetoric still all too prevalent in the Tory Party.

I thought the speech was impressive. He came across as sincere and as someone who wants to build a grand coalition, rather than as the leader of a political tribe. The speech also conveyed the right tone for someone who must now confidently expect to be the next Prime Minister. Most importantly, he came across as a unifying one-nation Tory who is nonetheless prepared to make tough decisins, rather than as a brain dead neo-liberal who thinks the answers to life's problems are to be found in undergraduate economics textbooks.

This constitutes progress of sorts given the Tory Party's bizarre drift to the right over the past year, which is the one thing that could yet jeopardise their victory. It is important that Cameron recognises he needs to appeal to those whose natural sympathies lie elsewhere (including those who stuck with New Labour in 2005 but are now planning to desert).

Overall it restored my belief somewhat in his modernisation project, and much of what he said on social policy in particular made a great deal of sense.

Kevyn Bodman

I disagree with most of the commenters above.
More details would have been welcome.
Say what you want to achieve and how you will achieve it;among the virtues of that approach is that it is a sign of confidence .
Also, of course it's a sign of honesty and a move away from the deceit that poisons many people's view of politicians.
(My view is certainly poisoned.)

I particularly disagree with the fear that Labour will steal policies.
If they are the correct policies wouldn't you like to see them generally accepted by the political class?
The ratchet effect has been working for decades in favour social democrat ideas; why not initiate a ratchet in the other direction?
And for that to happen then some ideas will have to be 'stolen'.

I also differ,deeply,from any commenters who want a Conservative government just because it is formed by members of the Conservative party.
I have no interest at all in a centrist government, no matter who is at the head of it.

Andy Carpark

@ chris 10:15. How dare you, Sir. Question Time takes place before a randomly selected audience of hand-picked lefties.

Naomi Langford-Wood

I thought David Cameron's speech was good. I am surprised to be able to say that.

He played a difficult hand.

He showcased the team to show it was not the Dave and George show.

He told it how it is with regard to the current situation.

He showed apparently genuine passion and respect.

He seemed to be fair and give credit where it was due.

The messages about big government being at the root of the problem make total sense.

It would be a good strategy even if it was only to get the government to actually commit to how they are going to address the problems they've created rather than just talk about their policies.

It needs the government to answer why it has such disincentives to come off benefits, why the architect of the tripartite regulation still insists that he will keep it much the same when it broke us, and the other issues.

A gauntlet has been thrown on the ground. Let's see how Gordon Brown deals with that. And, don't forget, Tony Blair was and is responsible for all of it too and the gobbledegook.

William Blakes Ghost

Brown doesn't possess one

I think with a bit of analysis this isn't quite true. IMO It is fairer to say:

<'Brown doesn't possess one that materially benefits the UK or even the Labour Party'

It is a vision that involves Brown's 'New World order', Brown's 'saving the world', Brown having some 'important' job in some 'important' global organisation and Brown receiving awards like 'World Statesman of the Year'.

You see Brown's vision is all about Gordon Brown's ambition. He doesn't give a fig about the UK and the he has exhausted and emptied out the now vacuous shell of the Labour Party. Both are just stepping stones to his 'New World Order'.........

tonyp

What I really don't understand is why there is no way of making those who continually lie accountable for their actions. The force of law should come into play including the threat of prison sentences.
There is surely no greater crime than going into politics for money whilst taking no responsibility for your actions - even if those actions bankrupt the whole country.
I thought DC was very restrained yesterday in his comments about the slanderous statements regularly made by GB and others; I just hope and pray that the press continue to make clear that most Government politicians have little or no concern for anybody other than themselves.

echo34

One thing to say...

Show me one occasion when a member of the labour party has credited the tories with tory policies?

Devolution, minimum wage? Cameron was honest and gave credit where it was due.

Can anyone honestly see Gordon Brown ever doing the same?

A new refreshing direction for politics i hope.

crappy little country, crappy people in it

A Conservative government is a step in the right direction. I am going to take them on trust because I want an end to the evil (yes, that's right, EVIL) that is Labour.

Now to something worth discussing:
THE POSTAL STRIKE
It seems to me that the Royal Mail has to die so that a national postal service can rid itself of its arrogant workers union.

So, for a start what you need to do is to call up your local sorting office, and tell them that you want to be exempt from deliveries of junk mail - this is where they will get most of their income as private individuals and business begin to desert them.

crappy little country, crappy people in it

chris as usual - about the BBC; lets all stop paying the licence fee - what are they going to do about it? (yes I can see the flaw, the crap people, and there are a lot of them, think that the BBC is a good thing).

Simon Stephenson

I think we need to remember that hard-coded in Steve Richards' mind are two concepts:-

1. Authority is better at making people happy than the people are themselves.

2. Authority has a duty to be active in creating this extra happiness for the people.

They're the attitudes of someone who is incapable of accepting that most children will reach the stage when proactive parental interference is a hindrance to their lives, not a help. This is not to say that parents, or authority, should shut themselves off from their offspring, merely that the initiation of the "advice-transaction" should come from the offspring, not the parent.

Let's try to construct a society where authority is seen principally as a consultative resource, not a dictatorial force.

Frank P

Why has this magazine become a launching pad for the ideas of wankers like Steve Richards and the rest of the precious Leftist coterie that seems to have a free pass here? If we want to check on the current state of their agitprop, we can read the Gruniad or associated waste paper. And while I'm at it, if Richards intends to persist in his TV appearances, will somebody please advise him that he has lost his battle against hair loss and that he should give up gracefully; his attempts to disguise it are pathetic. But then it goes with the ideology, I suppose.

Moreover, I hope somebody is recharging a poisoned pen on the subject of Obarmy's Nobbled Prize. As usual there seems to be a great reluctance on the part of this Mag to put the boot into The Won when such opportunities arise. For those who are interested in real satire take a look at Vanderleun's contrubution on the subject on American Digest blog:

http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/there_he_is_mister_americ.php

Verity

Vulture – Brava! (I think you’re a gal. If you’re a chap, Bravo!)

Kevyn Bodman, agreed. And I read on Melanie’s blog yesterday, that only 25% of the attendees were actual members of the Conservative Party. The others were a legion of quangocrats and EUSSR apparachiks. They were the ones giving the rapturous applause. So the Conservative Party Conference was actually addressing people other than, uh, Conservatives. I cannot believe in the naiveté of some of those posting above.

Naomi Langford Wood wrote: "He showed apparently genuine passion and respect." I liked that “apparently”.

William Blake’s Ghost: "You see Brown's vision is all about Gordon Brown's ambition." Seconded. And David Cameron’s vision is all about David Cameron’s ambition. What a pair of Del Boys.

mac

Frank P:

Reverential references to Guru Richards is a puzzlingly recurring theme hereabouts. I'd imagined it was a D'Ancona-ism, but evidently not . . .

drakes drum

If readers have time they should go back and read the writings of this man Richards.

I have listened to him, used to watch his early Sunday morning programme on ITV, read most, if not all, his columns and can say that never has one man said and written so much contradicting rubbish.

The man is no brain of Britain, indeed he is to political thinking what Bono is to philosophy! An empty vessel.

Quick to praise enything socialist but equally quick to knock the Conservatives.

Please do not give him any further publicity.

Nicholas

For a non-media, non-bien pensant, non-popular fiction view of Tory policies and how they will be achieved refer to Oliver Letwin's article 'Tories Have No Lack of Policies' in the October issue of Standpoint. The reading list that comes with it is probably going to be a challenge for those conditioned by 12 years of New Labour one-line soundbites, trite 'to-do' lists and second-hand opinions but those who want to be informed should persevere.

In contrast Peter Hitchens article 'Only Defeat Can Save Conservatism' in the same issue is a master class in how to ignore the small print and let personal dislike blind you to reality. It is the political commentary equivalent of Wellington worrying more whether his men were sufficiently British in outlook rather than fighting Napoleon at Waterloo. And after Cameron's speech yesterday somewhat the scribblings of a chump. Yes, Peter, Conservatism could be saved from its "lurch to the left" by getting rid of David Cameron and losing the General Election (q.v. Verity), but it would probably never be in power again. Is a concern about some socialist (read communitarian) tendencies in David Cameron's Conservative Party worth the risk of a genuine and horribly socialist top-down state for another 5 or 10 years?

We have seen enough barmy ideas emerge from New Labour in just the last 6 months. Can you imagine the ideas that would emerge from a triumphalist, victorious New Labour preparing for another 5 year term when they have already demonstrated they can discard their manifesto and make it up as they go along, abandoning all accountability along the way?

JONNY

Cameron's message was too far right for most Labour commentators.
And too Conservative for the likes of Verity.
But for the rest of us - Mannah from Heaven.
It was forevever and a day THE BASIC GUTSY CONSERVATIVE MESSAGE.
From Churchill and Macmillan to Macleod and Heath.
To take power back from the encroaching state that sits on top of all of us and hand it back to the people.
Never better expressed nor with more passion and conviction.
But the lady won't buy it.
She's voting Brown.

Tim Carpenter

If he told us how he would deliver it and what the vision actually entailed, many people would recoil, including members of his own party.

Make no mistake, it is going to be Authoritarian, Communitarian and certainly not about shrinking "The State". Shrinking "Whitehall" for sure, but we will just get as many or more prod-nosing bureaucrats right on our doorsteps, for he talks about decentralisation and not about restoring power to the individual. Dave will not just re-arrange the deckchairs, but get a whole lot more so every deck is cluttered with them. We will get Regionalisation in line with the EU, seeing as Dave does not have the cajones to fight for the sovereignty he expects to be lent. This is how "decentralisation" and "local accountability" will be "delivered", I fear.

Verity

I am alarmed to see how eager many of the men posting here have been to have the wool pulled over their eyes. Complicit in their own deceit. Only a couple of the chaps, but all the women, can see Cameron with 20-20 vision.

You may be the same people who were fooled by the same tricks when Blair pulled them.

JONNY

'Only a couple of the chaps, but all the women, can see Cameron with 20-20 vision'

Correct Verity:
and most of these same women like what they see.
But I'll tell you what Verity.
They've also got their eyes clearly focussed on your favoured candidate Brown.
The one you'll be voting for as PM.
And they seem to agree with me, he's not a pretty sight.

Nicholas

So what's the alternative Verity? 5-10 more years of New Labour? No thanks. But it looks like the "best is the enemy of the good" brigade are going to deliver power to them.

Your scenario of a collapsing New Labour government soon into another new term and a vote of no confidence is bigger pie in the sky than my view of Cameron's credentials! You underestimate the desire of the British people to subject themselves to socialism.

And Blair never once fooled me. I have never voted Labour or New Labour in my life.

Tiberius

Verity: I count at least three women who have posted in favour of Cameron on this thread alone.

So before we get into opinion, you're facts are wrong!

Victor Southern

It is not a question of enumerating specific pledges - we had that from Blair and Brown aplenty. It is a continuous thought process that must pervade every aspect of the relationship between government and the governed.

It is the mirror reversal of everything that Labour has done to us as they marginalised or ignored voters and then their own MPs. There are right now just over 1000 reasons why some or the other official can enter your home without permission.

One need not legislate for a better relationship - one must "unlegislate" the 18000 odd laws and regulations that Labour enacted. One must consider how many of the 3000-odd new criminal offences should be retained on the statute books.

One must bring major policy announcements to Parliament and not put them out holding a mug of coffee in the middle of Downing Street to to journalists on a plane travelling to a foreign country or at an infants school.

It may be that George Osborne has so far only announced cuts amounting to £7-billion a year - a piffling £500 saved for a family of 4. But those cuts were sufficient to have Yvette Cooper categorised them as creating 5-million unemployed. Darling's cuts [many of them identical even if late] would, of course, result in more employment. Such is the Alice in Wonderland scenario of New Labour.

Just remember that as recently as the beginning of July Brown was trumpeting that it was Tory Cuts versus Labour Investment. That was a bare-faced lie yet he has been able to recant effortlessly as though he never said it.

Tiberius

... and so is my grammar...

your.

Verity

Most of the “women” posting here seem to be new to Coffee House. At least, I don’t think I’ve seen their names here before.

Nicholas, I’m sticking to my point. Gordon Brown and that whole stable have the staggers. If they get in with a very reduced majority – say around 30 – and we have a strong and decisive Leader, I do not think they will be able to survive for longer than a year to 18 months. They’re knackered. They’re finished. Susan Boyle will be giving Gordon Brown a get-well call at The Priory.

Just look at them. Jack Straw. Ed Balls, Harriet Harpic, for God’s sake, and all those other fat, smug, bossy Trot women. They’re creepy. They’re the walking dead.

Nicholas

"Just look at them. Jack Straw. Ed Balls, Harriet Harpic, for God’s sake, and all those other fat, smug, bossy Trot women. They’re creepy. They’re the walking dead."

I couldn't agree more and that's why they need to go and to go soon. But give them an inch and they'll take a few furlongs. The danger with your scenario is that it presumes that New Labour will not rapidly enact constitutional "reform" that will allow them to hold onto power indefinitely and that the Tories will not implode into civil war as the Verities and the Nicholases vie for control (not forgetting the Eurosceptics, Tebbit brigade, Red Tories, BoJo fans and Portillo Zombies too). It also, rather like Market Garden forgot the Germans, forgets the demonstrable apathy of the British people who have stood by and allowed so much infringement, intrusion and abuse by New Labour. More of the same is likely to cower them for all time.

Better to get the Tories in and then if DC is found wanting (which I doubt) the Tory mechanisms for deposing leaders are much more ruthless and effective than the mechanisms for ensuring a resurgent New Labour are kicked out with a vote of no confidence.

Your strategy is high risk idealism, mine lower risk realism. Believe me I have concerns too but my concerns about an essentially well-meaning Tory cabinet pale by comparison to my concerns about Brown's Second Wave New World Order Marxism which will hit our freedoms with the full force of Nanny "I told you so" Smug and Reichsfuhrer Von Prig.

TGF UKIP

Tiberius etc, I recommend you visit Guido at order-order.com. His post "Change you can believe in?" Does my work for me better than I could do it myself.

oldtimer

I am late to reading blogs after being out all day. To answer the question posed:
"Should Cameron have told us how he will do it?" I thought he did. He will rely on Adam Smith`s invisible hand. It was his closing remark, though he put it differently.

Snowman

If it were to Cameron perhaps we could get out of the mess. It isn't. You name just one institution that hasn't been polluted with the pseudo-liberal philosophy of moral equivalence, political correctness, the multi-culti pap...To turn it over will be harder than getting the economy on the track.

Realitycheck

Professor Blanchflower ex MPC member and one official from the Bank of England called 'modern' conservative policy on the economy irresponsible and downright dangerous. Cutting expenditure, and by default, the size of the state, will harm recovery and fuel massive unemployment, to circa 5 million people. The IMF, CBI, even the Bank of England is against easing expenditure given that they stand ready to increase q. easing by another 200 billion. I suppose to 'modern' conservatives on this site, a ruined economy is the price to pay for getting into 'power'. What is happening to this country is a tragegy. A combination of myopia and disdain for Brown will finally consign this country to a middling power at the margins of Europe, treated with contempt by the States and insignificant as a global economy. What I wanted to hear most from Osbourne was a growth led recovery not one dominated by cuts however necessary they are. There was nothing, absolutely nothing on creating jobs but lots on cutting govt at a time when people need it the most. That is not intelligent. If it is, then it does not reconcile to the many contradictions thrown up by Osbourne and Cameroon's speeches.

John Maynard

It is possible to understand the tribal Labourites, it is possible to understand the self-interested client vote, but the huge swathe of Brown supporting journos and commentators embedded in every corner of the media, (many of them fiercely attacking Brown on behalf of Blair only a few years ago), is impossible to understand.

It is even possible to understand how Brown, Balls, Campbell and Mandelson have corrupted a heavy majority of newspaper owners and editors, even of Tory leaning papers, to unconditional support. After all, newspaper proprietors have always been in love with power.
But STILL ? after the past two years ? Just how does that work ?
It is truly baffling.

Verity

Nicolas - "It also, rather like Market Garden forgot the Germans, forgets the demonstrable apathy of the British people who have stood by and allowed so much infringement, intrusion and abuse by New Labour."

Fair comment. But I see no other way. Cameron is a weak, controlling man. He will tighten the knot, in self-defence, because, I think, with absolutely nothing to say and nothing to promise, he will be coasting on the aspirations and perceptions of others.

I'm not dismissing the thought that Boris may bowl a googly.

Moraymint

"[Cameron] wants to liberate Society by deconstructing the state to subservience ...".

Do you really believe that?

I don't.

Anyone who just a few months ago was planning to grow the state by "sharing the proceeds of growth" is an economic illiterate with no intention whatsoever of shrinking the state.

This all looks and sounds like great PR to me. Blair was good at that too. Look where that's got us.

I despair.

Augustus

Left-wingers often confuse wealth distribution with income distribution. We often hear it said that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. When Cameron says he intends to make it easier for people to start up and make a success of business on their own, and provide greater rewards for those who strive hard to succeeed, he obviously doesn't just mean high-ranking executives in private industry, but a sound conservative belief in economic
freedom and liberalism leading to a widening of the distribution of income. As for the economy generally, there is nothing wrong in not trying to define all economic aims all at once, simply because some goals clash with others. And especially when resources are limited, a choice must be made and placed in some order because it is obvious that what is central and of major importance is to tackle 'big government' and red tape that was Labour's agenda, as well as the distortions caused by an excess of laws and other restrictions so prevalent in the 'nanny state'