The Tories' Letwin-devised policy pyramid

Glen Green

Is it just me or do those 6 points look remarkably like Bliar's New-Lab promises back in '97?

David Bouvier

How dumb are the MPs who can't understand this? Clear top message, simple tripartite structure

Change:
Economy (debt, enterprise), Society (family, health,education), Politics (costs, transparency) which any speech, leaflet etc can adopt.

Bit iffy having a promise (change politics) that is the same thing as a theme (change politics) and having 7 promises is no big issue given the structure above.

Duyfken

And what a surprise: no mention of the EU either. Or does "Give people more power and control." embrace the intention to wrest power back from Brussels?

Michael Booth

No mention of immigration? Mmmm just like the Neatherless world of the Speccie then...

Austin Barry

Apart from waterboarding, what will it take to get our enervated and dissembling ruling elite to discuss immigration and Europe?

Big Jersey

A massively inflated piffle of a pyramidal conceit.

Does Letwin walk like an Egyptian, and why? I should coco!

Vote UKIP - you know it makes sense, and they don't need pyramids neither!

Syb Ille

Is this a new party game doing the rounds of the metropolitan chic?

The Tories - hmm, a bit triangular?

Labour - obviously balls

Libdems - polyhedral?

UKIP - square, good honest yeomen and women, at rightangles ...

Where's Basil Brush when you need him?

stepney

Ah dear Mr Letwin. The thinking genius' wonk.

To be frank, given his form, I'm quite suprised this isn't a 3 dimensional tetra-nonagon.

Ed B

Interesting wording on health: "Increase spending on health every year, and make the NHS work for patients not managers".

This sounds like a subtle backtracking on the previous commitment to ring-fence NHS spending in totality. The new pledge is instead consistent with a programme to increase spending on front-line health but to pay for it by hacking away at back office spending, and then some.

If so, good!

Danko

Why only cut Quango's by a third? What happened to the bonfire?

Verity

Austin Barry, I like your suggestion and I hope you were not just being ironic. Mmmmmmmm, waterboarding ...

Verity

In the waterboarding queue, frankly, I would allow Jack Straw to take precedence over Gordon Brown for firsties.

TheE17Tory

How long has Letwin and the think tanks spent coming up with this sack of shite? Give me 15 mins and a postcard and I could come up with something better than this. If this is the campaign message, god help us.

djw2009

Promise 1: action on debt: the Conservatives will cut only £1.8bn this year, and have refused to make any commitment to abolishing the quangocracy. THIS PROMISE IS A LIE.

Promise 2: boosting enterprise: corporation tax may be cut slightly, but other taxes will go up, and the promise to get people off welfare into work is weak - Mrs Thatcher didn't do that either. THIS PROMISE IS A LIE.

Promise 3: make Britain family-friendly: the Tories are pro-gay and their "family" definition includes gay men. Gay men will adopt children under a Tory government, children will be subject to constant propaganda on sexuality at school. Fight back on crime? Oh please, you're too politically correct to do much. THIS PROMISE IS A LIE.

Promise 4: back the NHS: because they won't countenance reform, spending on bureaucracy will go up ever year under the Tories. The NHS will work for managers even more than it does now. THIS PROMISE IS A LIE.

Promise 5: raise standards in schools: the Conservatives are opposed to corporal punishment in schools and will not undertake to make the GCSE exam standards at least as tough as the old O levels (which weren't tough). A few schools will be set up by parents - they may do better than schools under bureacratic control, but the truth is that there is not the determination among the middle class to overturn politically correct teaching, and so the new free schools will underperform too. THIS PROMISE IS A LIE.

Promise 6: change politics: I don't believe quangos will be cut by 10%, never mind a third, and people without pension provision will still pay through their taxes for the pensions of the quangocrats and MPs. THIS PROMISE IS A LIE.

THE SECRET PROMISES OF THE TORIES:
1) The EU will continue to make 70% of our laws
2) Immigration will continue, and hundreds of thousands from outside Europe will be dished out our passports
3) Multiculturalism will continue unchecked. The Commission for Racial Equality will remain in existence, and its members will not be prosecuted for abuse of power. Every company up and down the land will be forced to take part in these political campaigns.
4) The health and safety lobby will remain unchecked. Officials who issue absurd rulings will not be prosecuted for abuse of power.
5) The welfare state will remain in existence in its present form. 16 year olds who get pregnant will continue to get houses and benefits for life. Benefit scroungers will continue to have their council tax paid for them - corrupting local democracy.
6) The quangocrat scroungers will live high on the hog under the conservatives. The BBC's chief executive's £800,000 a year will be increased under the conservatives, and licence payers will continue to contribute to his pension. More quangos will be created, and more of the business of government will be done by unaccountable quangos who can pay themselves what they like.
7) Bogus charities like the NSPCC whose work consists mainly of political propaganda will continue to be largely subsidised by the taxpayer. Charities will not be compelled to engage in good works. They will continue to run in the interests of their staff, diverting the bulk of any contributions from the public into lavish pay and pensions. Islamic charities funded by the taxpayer will divert funds into terrorism with the knowing acceptance of the Conservative Party.

TomTom

Of course there's no mention of immigration. Where Letwin lives in Dorset there is no Immigration and with his taxpayer-funded tennis court he probably doesn't even employ coolies around the estate.

He cannot be expected to work mornings at Rothschilds and concern himself with the proles and assorted riff-raff - he probably thinks English oiks are just as foreign as Berbers

Paul Hawkins

djw numbers - don't try the usual stale tricks. You are welcome to hold an opinion of how this may pan out in the future but don't try to present it as fact. It is not. Or are you trying to mislead deliberately?

Jez

Ha Ha Ha!

Thomas Johnson

djw2009 - I absolutely love you! You 100% correct. Might I add though that the Lieabour Party are exactly the same!

se1man

Triangle.
Not pyramid.

Nicholas

This all seems a bit timid and I see nothing about immigration (which I thought they had promised to cap), smaller government, civil liberties or curbing the police. In fact within the rhetoric are quite a few concessions to nannyism.

Verity

Nicholas is correct: "In fact within the rhetoric are quite a few concessions to nannyism."

In fact, is there any Conservative policy at all that Dave has not conceded? What is the point of the Tory Party under Dave? If we want a Marxist clone, we can stick with the rascals we know.

Alexandrovich

Paul Hawkins: "...trying to mislead deliberately." No, djw2009 is trying and succeeding, most eloquently, to expose the crap that the modern Tory Party has become.

strapworld

Letwin is a disaster.What fool thought he was of any use? He should have been deselected"!

Maude is a disaster. He should have been sacked over expenses.

Last night, Andrew Lansley proved he is lightweight and useless. Anyone that makes that Green Party woman look good must be bad!

Eric Pickles should have been sacked over the expenses scandal and Gove should have been sacked similarily/

I am sad to say that the one man I do like
Dr.Liam Fox should now resign over the expenses scandal.

Cameron should be on gardening leave tending his beloved wisteria.

That leaves David Davis. William Hague,John Redwood and Ken Clarke to create a proper conservative shadow cabinet which would be of greater attraction to the people.

The way it is, we are going to most probably get a Cameron government which will prove a disaster. God help us all.

Great Britainistan

denis cooper

They've got one thing right:

"We can't go on like this".

It's as if we're split between two parallel universes: the political class and their media chums are living in one, and the rest of us are living in the other ...

echo34

Here we go again...

Ben

Although I am normally a Tory voter, the next Tory government does not fill me with enthusiasm.

M. Rowley

This vacuous drivel from the Tories only serves to remind those of us who enthusiastically backed the party in 1979, why we will no longer be voting for them.

echo34

My first and last post on this subject.

The election is a two horse race, either labour or the tories will be in control after May 6.

Anyone who believes that their vote for UKIP/greens/ lib dems will result in that party winning the election is in cloudcuckooland. If you're using it as a protest vote, well more fool you.

The idea is to get rid of this government whatever, if that does not happen, and labour win, i believe that through gerrymandering, boundary changes, more postal voting, we will never get them out.

So before you all start self-harming again, think about where this is all going. Labour winning is the really scary bit and if you vote other that tory, it will your own fault.

The diagram above is not a full blown tory policy document and its going to have things missing that people care about.

And Verity, every single post ends up about Dave personally doesn't it?

2trueblue

Better the devil you don't know, or we could have 5 more years of Brown/Liebore. It does seem we are all in a tricky position, get behind the Tory party or get stuffed with Brown/Liebore/Clegg. A hell of a choice?

Jez

"The diagram above is not a full blown tory policy document and its going to have things missing that people care about."

F*** me mate, a lot of people are praying you're correct on that one.

Tipping point?

echo34

Jez,

I'm guessing it cant be as otherwise it would have been on the back of fag packet instead of a triangle.

Noa Zrk

djw2009 - Yep-handsomely said.

Let-Lab-win's triangle = The Bermuda Triangle.

Sad to see that Conservative policies are confined exclusively these days to the BNP and UKIP.

TGF UKIP

Any wonder that I always refer to him as Loopy?

Simon Too

It is a frothy triangle with very few nuggets of any substance inside. It could be paraphrased it as "Let's change the snouts in the trough and carry on much as before" and most of it could be used by any party.

The Conservatives are still insistently saying nothing about freedom.

Vote Candyfloss?

Fred Blogs

A great front page for the Conservatory manifesto