Here's some beef
10:49amAmidst all the hullabaloo about David Cameron heading to Rwanda while parts of his constituency remain flooded, it is worth noting that the report he is unveiling over there has some pretty sound ideas in it.
Writing in the Telegraph this morning, Peter Lilley, the group’s chair, argues that trade is essential and that rich countries must do five things: 
“open their markets unilaterally to the products of all low-income countries; liberalise the "rules of origin" that result in 40 per cent of imports that should enter Europe tariff-free paying duties; give incentives to reduce the high tariff barriers between developing countries; abolish export subsidies that damage Third World agriculture; and give more Aid for Trade to help poor countries develop their exports.”
This is a serious, substantive agenda. If the other policy groups come up with ideas of equal quality the Tories might soon have something crunchy to offer voters.
Previous
Anon
July 24th, 2007 11:36am Report this commentCan't we help poor people IN THIS COUNTRY before we start trying to save the world
Og
July 24th, 2007 12:20pm Report this commentPeter Lilley may be a lot of things, but he is not a chair. If it is not Spectator editorial policy to ban leftie language, it ought to be.
rk
July 24th, 2007 1:18pm Report this commentI agree that this is a good substantive agenda (targetting the CAP would be a good start) but it has been overshadowed by events and a poor choice of venue for delivering the message. It has nothing at all to do with the Rwanadan genocide and you can’t launch a policy in Rwanada without the genocide as your backdrop. Now had the topic been reform of the UN, criticism for international inaction over Darfur or making the case for an interventionist foreign policy then Rwanda is a useful example to draw upon. As it is we are left with mostly confused media reporting that picks up little of this agenda and pictures of Tories aping charity workers.
T
July 24th, 2007 3:49pm Report this commentIt would help poor people in this country. It would make food a lot cheaper.
M
July 24th, 2007 5:30pm Report this commentThese are NOT good policies. First of all their unilateral nature woill not encourage the poor countries' governments to act in a responsible way. Secondly, they will NOT make food cheaper, as present aides to Western agriculture make Western food cheaper than food from the Third World, which will have the same price whether we abolish them or not. Compassion bubble, that's all.
TomTom
July 24th, 2007 5:39pm Report this commentWe are still sending economi aid to China through the EU - and they are buying into Barclays Bank....shows how useful this aid really is !
M
July 24th, 2007 5:41pm Report this commentP.s.: Looking at the situation from an foreign point of view, my impression about why the Tories seem incabable to win in Britain is that they have simply no suitable leaders to propose to the British people. David Cameron may have more appeal than his last predecessors but you all really know, don't you, that he is nothing compared with Thatcher, or Blair, or even Brown... He may be a nice fellow, but he's not a leader of the right "size".
James T Kirk
July 24th, 2007 7:22pm Report this commentLady Thatcher and Cameron (should he ever get the chance)are leaders because they have the country's interests as their primary motivation. Blair and Brown have their own and their Party's interests as their primary concern. Now TB may have been, and GB turn out to be, long serving PMs, but that will not be down to them being good leaders.
TomTom
July 24th, 2007 8:28pm Report this commentWell James Kirk you think the Conservatives have the best platitudes....what you just wrote is so banal and meaningless that it shows why Labour is in power. The Conservatives do not convince. They are half-hearted clubbers who stagger in from their money-making activities for a few coffee-mornings in THe Commons and really could not care less about office. They know they will not win an election but hope it will be their turn again one day. This party will shrink and Electoral Calculus shows an 84-seat Labour majority.......Cameron is becoming irrelevant...as are the Conservatives
Elliott Joseph
July 24th, 2007 9:21pm Report this commentThe ideas may be sound. Unfortunately, preoccupied as we are with events closer to home, nobody is going to take a blind bit of notice of them. The trip certainly won't make the nice photo op it was supposed to. And what are the chances of Cameron being able to land a blow on the government over their preparations for or response to the crisis now?
He shouldn't have gone.
James T Kirk
July 25th, 2007 9:56am Report this commentTom Tom, my point is meant to be a purely academic observation, certainly not an argument one would put the electorate to win votes. The advantage in possessing means to win votes definitely belongs to Labour as anyone who watched the BBC's 10pm news last night will observe. The biggest obstacle the Tories' face is actually the media. If that is Andy Coulson's department, I wish him the best of luck because he sure is going to need it.
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