On the doorstep for the local elections the common refrain is: it’s time for a change

Fraser Nelson

Wednesday, 23rd April 2008

Fraser Nelson reviews the week in politics

Dispatching so many frontbenchers certainly is a sign of commitment. But it is one largely lost on the people of Salford, who (as activists admit) could not pick out most shadow Cabinet members from a police line-up. I am accompanying the indefatigable Chris Grayling, who has not quite reached the status of household name. When he explains he is ‘part of David Cameron’s shadow Cabinet’, this normally draws a blank stare, as if he were referring to a 1950s tribute band. But, crucially, the Conservative rosette is a welcome one.

The most common phrase I heard on the doorsteps was ‘time for a change’. The loudest voice of support for the new Tories comes from Naeem Mirza, a Muslim who beckons over the activists to the building site he is working on. ‘People used to think they were for the rich but I say — read the manifesto. They have Asian councillors.’ Had his niqab-clad sister not appeared to bring him his packed lunch, I would have suspected he was a Tory plant. He could have sprung straight from one of Mr Cameron’s dreams.

The streets we are walking are hardly the rougher ’hoods of Greater Manchester. As Mr Grayling puts it: ‘Look at this area, why on earth is this Labour?’ I later meet Bob Bibby, Bury council leader, who says the newly built estates are only now turning into Tory-friendly territory. ‘Our saying used to be “new estate, new Labour”,’ he says. ‘Blair was never really hated in the north, he always kept these places. But not now. There is no attachment to Brown.’

The biggest opposition I see Mr Grayling encounter is from the likely abstainers. One young woman puts it succinctly. ‘One politician says this, another says that, nothing changes.’ Other voters on the doorstep pose a straightforward consumer proposition: what would the Tories do for me, personally? The absence of a clear, snappy answer to this question is, in my view, one of Mr Cameron’s main liabilities at present. But for now, the best way to clinch a Conservative vote is to ask whether voters are affected by Mr Brown’s ‘10p tax’.

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Nigel

April 25th, 2008 7:40pm Report this comment

It was never "time for a change" in 1997 (Major was a far better PM than eithe Blair or Brown). I get rather fed up with that cliche after a government's been in power for 3 or 4 terms.

jon livesey

April 25th, 2008 8:44pm Report this comment

I've been thinking recently that Cameron should be a bit worried if Boris loses in London, but a lot worried if he wins.

TrevorH

April 27th, 2008 2:50pm Report this comment

Its perfectly right for people to ask 'what will the conservatives do for me?' and right for you to criticise a woolly answer.

However - we should all remember that such is the cats cradle of means tested credits and benefits in the monumental edifice which Brown has built that any ANY attempt to undo it to simplify it to incentivise it will inevitably create losers as well as winners.

The current system is plain wrong. Conservatives need to change it, but it will create losers. I would abolish all the means tested pensions benefits and winter payments and give a massive increase to the basic pension, but surely some would lose out? Possibly if we had a simpler system we could save on bureaucracy and use that to pay even more.

But you tell me how do you sell that? One promising bye product of this current 10p mess is that the electorate probably see the flaws in Browns post neo classical endogenous growth model now.