Some questions for the Tories to ponder

Teesbridge

Sitting quite still for the next twelve months may be a good plan; by then the current administration should have run out of road and started cutting public services anyway.

Then the new administration can play the traditional "...but when we saw the books..." card.

Ken Clarke's books (ironically) were too good for Brown to run that line, so there are multiple generations who've forgotten this part of new regime ritual (happily enough).

TrevorH

I do not think Charls Moore need get too worried ...

1. Talk more about saving energy, not cutting CO2. Saving energy saves you money. Talk more about HELPING people go green rather than spying and taxing them. Put the responsibility for recycling much more on local authorities and not harassed individuals but REWARD recyclers. Offset any green taxes with income tax cuts elswhere. Forget global warming, but equate 'greeness'/care for the environment with common sense, decent neighbourliness and respect for our surroundings/ way of life.

2. Repeal the human rights act.
Concentrate on policing, "POLICING POLICING POLICING", rather than the totally irelevant events after arrest. Deport foreign criminals/undesirables. Make Chief Constables locally accountable and/or subject to local election. Change the law to make chief constables more easily dismissed. Depoliticise the police. Sack Sir Ian Blair.

3. Take schools out of the control of local authorities wherever possible and strengthen the role of parents/govenors. Give them more responsibility. Give more local responsibility/ accountability to hospitals/NHS trusts. Makes savings in needless bureaucracy. Reward talent, encourage initiative. Crush jobsworths.

4. Labours future spending projections already leading to real cuts so partly this is being done for them.
Get the benefit budget/tax credits fiasco under control. Get rid of means tested benefits save on bureaucracy and consolidate pensions to give a decent old age pension.
Do more with less. Efficiency. Make it worthwhile to work.

I am no svengali/election genius-guru, but now Lynton Crosby is heading back to Australia my services are available at a very reasonable rate.

Cindy

Surely it is about the language that is used. Instead of harping on about tax CUTS they should say we will CUT spending on welfare, bureaucracy etc. Conservatives should talk about small government and really hammer home to voters that their hard earned taxes have been wasted by the inefficiency of the NHS and the government, in any rebuttal to Labour accusations of Tory cuts.

Faceless Bureaucrat

1. Educate, don't penalise.

2. Strip out the left-wing bias that has infected the Judiciary for the last 30 years or more.

3. Finally get a grip on under performing Teachers and 'Health Managers' and realise that throwing money at poorly performing schools and Hospitals might not be the best way to remedy the situation.

4. They don't! - they announce that having now had a chance to fully audit and assess the true state of the country's finances, it is clear that previous spending committments are not now achievable. Then get a grip on the profligate waste that is endemic under New Labour - Painful but neccessary.

Simple really...

David Lindsay

Oh, get a grip! Labour did badly, but the Tories didn't really do all that well.

They won a sui generis position elected by a system not used for Westminster, Strasbourg or local councils, by the people of what now amounts to a different country from the rest of England, at least as distinct as Scotland or Wales. Their successful candidate is no more a functioning member of his party than the man he replaced was a functioning member of his.

For the third time running (after the 2005 General Election and last year's local elections), the Tories are reduced to crowing about winning places that it is barely credible that they ever lost, safe in the knowledge that the lazy, ignorant London media will assume everywhere in the North of England or in Wales to be a Labour heartland.

Turnout was only thirty-five per cent. All those missing Labour voters will be back for the General Election.

And in any case, who could possibly care who won the next General Election? There is absolutely no political difference between the parties. The Leader of the Opposition just happens to be prettier and posher than the Prime Minister, and therefore more acceptable to the BBC. Haven't we been here before?

Thortung

bwahahahahahaha!

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth...

Andrew W

TrevorH: Spot on, but definitely elected chief constables.

Fraser Nelson

1. Do what Cameron has done since Blackpool - just shut up about it, and see who complains.
2. Pass a law that explicitly states English courts have supremacy over Strasbourg, then adjust English law accordingly.
3. Easily. Adopt radical supply-side reforms on health as Gove has on education. Schools can be the policy that wins Cameron his second term. Most importantly, scrap potentially calamitous proposal to make NHS bureaucracy "independent" - that means throwing away the keys.
4. Promise to "lock in" Labour's record spending - code for a real terms spending freeze (or minimal rises). This is not a cut, and Tories should ruthlessly stamp on any suggestions to the contrary.

Old Hack

The answer is that you cannot give valid answers whilst seeking to avoid criticism from the left. You stay focused on winning - that means presentation, not detailed policies.

The Conservatives have now entered the period of opposition similar to that arguably experienced by New Labour between '95 and '97.

In similar circmstances Blair did not give answers to every demand for policy detail. Labour produced a pledge card and slogans. Expect no more or less of the Conservatives.

But behind the scenes we have a right to expect some serious thinking and answers to such questions if not at an election then soon after.

The Conservatives should not lose focus - winning is the name of the game.

TrevorH

" no more a functioning member of his party" -- he was asked to stand by the leadership. And won the nomination on an open primary system.

Ian C

1) Explain that green means being sensible not alarmist - incentivise enrgy saving. Turn unnecessaty lights off - lights in offices and shops are ridiculous over night as are most street lighting in the early hours. Stop talking about carbon as poison. It is a friend and looking less and less likely to be causing anything.
2)Repeal the Human Rights Act and work toward a written constitution with Bill of Rights(and term limitations for senior elected poositions).
3)New slogan (needs some work) "gov'ts can't run anything, stop politicians meddling. AND Public Service means just that. If the tax payer is your employer you are privileged and will be looked after - but you have to be (re-)trained to respect who pays your wages.
4) The necessary cuts will naturally follow from the new culture arising from delivering services against that backdrop.
5) David Lindsay - beam yourself back to planet Zog. Pretence seems to be a strength of yours.

TGF UKIP

If the Cameron Tories really wanted to become a conservative party again, which I don't think they do, they now really can break out from being the Blue Labour they've been for the past two years. Consistent polling indicates the majority of the public believe large amounts of spending of their taxes are being wasted and that they are spectical of and place low priority on green issues and above all they want to see a change of direction. To re-position themselves should be a doddle for a snake oil salesman like Cameron. As The Party of Ideas an invite to Bjorn Lomborg to an Environmental Forum or better still the Party Conference should provide cover for some rowing back, as will more and more scientists breaking cover to challenge the received wisdom. With "human rights", the judiciary etc, simple - free David Davis from the chains of metropolitan political correctness and he'll sort it out with an appropriately popular touch. Badly educated children and an NHS that costs every taxpayer over £3,000 pa for a crap service are public sectors that need fixing. Voters know that. Cameron should remember that even after Gordon's swelling of their ranks the public sector only accounts for 25% of the workforce - let Labour speak for them, their featherbedded treatment with the public's taxes is becoming increasingly resented and the Tories should be speaking for the 75% in the private sector who are paying for the featherbedding. With public spending at £617bn(£25k per household) borrwing set to rise by 2012 to £809bn (£32k per household) and a rapidly slowing economy, the voters would applaud a re-consideration of spending and borrowing plans and a diversion to "tax incentives" to get the economy growing again. All this and nearly all the preceding posts pre-supposes that the Cameron Tories seek to being other than Blue Labour. Well they might but they've shown no evidence of it so far and my guess is that the ultra pc, Big Government taxing and spending, anti business, social democrat Dave you've seen to date is the Dave you're going to get.

Cindy

Cameron should not ditch the green agenda but talk about in the same way as Hillary Clinton is at the moment in the US election primary. In case anyone has not seen her she talks of green collar jobs (jobs creating green technology to use at home and sell to the rest of the world) and conserving energy to save money and be less reliant on foreign oil.

TONY

REFORM OF THE BARNETT FORMULA ASAP! CONSERVATIVES OWE SCOTLAND NOTHING.

Chris

Putting "human rights" in quotation marks reminds me why I won't be voting conservative. This is a party that's full of people who think freedom is a rude word. OK the excuse for Charles Moore is that he's a rambling toff cretin, but human rights matter and should be defended. I'm not going to be voting for people who think that the right to a fair trial, or free speech, or just the right to go about life without interference, is a bad thing.

Commondog

Chris.

You're such a sweetie.

TGF UKIP

Careful, Commondog, you are clearly infringing Chris's "human right" not to be mocked or taunted on account of his "sweetieness." Expect a knock on the door and a visit from Plod.

David Lindsay

Ian C, which of these things is not the case? -

Mayor of London is a sui generis position elected by a system not used for Westminster, Strasbourg or local councils;

London now amounts to a different country from the rest of England, at least as distinct as Scotland or Wales;

Boris Johnson is no more a functioning member of his party than Ken Livingstone is a functioning member of his;

The Tories' gains in the North and in Wales were of places that it is barely credible that they ever lost;

The lazy, ignorant London media assume everywhere in the North or in Wales to be a Labour heartland;

Turnout was only thirty-five per cent, for lower than at even the next General Election;

There is absolutely no political difference between the parties;

The Leader of the Opposition just happens to be prettier and posher than the Prime Minister, and therefore more acceptable to the BBC; and

We been here before, in the last days of the Major Government, and look how that turned out.

Each and every one of these things is in fact the case.

Get a grip.