Saturday 5 July 2008

 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Liz Anderson

Liz suggests


The Tories are radical again

Cameron means business on welfare: the Tories are the radicals again

Wednesday, 31st October 2007

David Cameron is about to take up the issue that Margaret Thatcher didn’t dare touch and that defeated Tony Blair at the height of his powers: welfare reform. Fraser Nelson explains how the Conservative leader intends to bring the American welfare revolution to this country, challenge Labour on its home turf and make poverty history in Britain.

There is something about impending doom which focuses the mind. That is why the Tory conference in Blackpool was perhaps the most effective brainstorming session in the party’s history — albeit inadvertently. David Cameron arrived facing an election. He left the northern seaside resort having scared Gordon Brown away from going to the polls — and, in the process, launched a policy strategy more radical than he had ever dreamt he would be pursuing. The proposal to raise the inheritance-tax threshold to £1 million grabbed all the headlines and seems to have struck a chord in the Labour marginals that worried the PM very much. Much less attention was paid, however, to a much more radical proposal: namely, to bring the ‘Wisconsin welfare revolution’ to Britain.

More articles from: Fraser Nelson | this section

Subscribe now

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Comments

Post a comment


Your comment:*

Your name:*

Your email address:*
(We won't publish this)

*Required information

Please click the button only once - your comment will not be published immediately

Julio Juncal

November 8th, 2007 8:33pm

Mr Nelson says: "This is no accident. It was the American Left which grasped that traditional welfare was actually locking people into poverty, and decided to fight it not by raising incomes through benefits but by cutting welfare rolls." Can you substantiate that statement? The American Left, as we know it, fought tooth and nail against welfare reform under a Republican-dominated Congress and a Democratic President.

Richard Prior

January 8th, 2008 6:53pm

David Cameron should go out himself and do some real work for 5 Pounds per hour. Mr Cameron lives far away from reality on cloud Nr.17 Nobody should vote for this stupid and arrogant person

E. Meller

January 8th, 2008 7:04pm

So jobseekers should now accept any "suitable" job, OK, but what is a suitable job, you cant put out an IT engineer to clean the streets,or a musician to become an IT enineer. But that is exactly what will happen if private companys get paid to bring people back to work. Mr Cameron wants to rob the jobseekers and give the money to private companys instead. One wonders if Mr. Cameron will have shares in these companys. And regarding "suitable" jobs, I think a suitable job for Mr Cameron would be to clean public toilets.


In this section

A portrait of the artist as a tennis champion

Melissa Kite

Melissa Kite meets Martina Navratilova, nine times Wimbledon singles champion and now pioneer of ‘tennising’ — an artistic technique that creates Jackson Pollock-style patterns

Et tu, Scott? Bush’s press aide turns on his boss

James Forsyth

James Forsyth talks to Scott McClellan, former press secretary to the President, about his new book attacking the Bush administration, its methods and its deceits

The Law Lords are right to resist the government

Lord Lloyd of Berwick

Lord Lloyd of Berwick says that the government’s emergency legislation to overturn their lordships’ ruling on witness anonymity is part of a ‘gradual usurpation’ of our liberties

I was starstuck by David Cameron

Steven Berkoff

In the week of the Spectator Summer Party, Steven Berkoff recalls another of our celebrations at which he sought out the Tory leader and forgave his confusion of Brando and Dean

How to get stabbed: you, too, can be knifed in a public place

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle says that it helps to be aged between 14 and 30, white and male. Being drunk and argumentative speeds things along. And no public policy seems to dissuade those who do the stabbing

Related articles

The great box-ticker takes charge

Richard Northedge

Richard Northedge on the FSA's new chairman

C’mon Cherie: even Goering stuck up a bit for Hitler

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle says it is no surprise that Gordon Brown has ended up as surly and suspicious as he has: the memoirs of John Prescott, Lord Levy and Cherie Blair are appalling acts of treachery and avarice

Cameron gets ready for No. 10 — and Boris must wait his turn

Fraser Nelson

David Cameron talks to Fraser Nelson about his local election triumphs, admits that he is not going to ‘agree on everything’ with the new Mayor of London, and says Boris should join the queue to become PM after him

Shame on Scottish Tories for their Vichy sell-out

Gerald Warner

Gerald Warner says that Scotland’s Conservatives, far from standing their ground on devolution, have jumped with relish on the gravy train of the Holyrood parliament

A chance for the Lords to justify their existence

Daniel Hannan

The EU’s Lisbon Treaty was handled scandalously in the Commons, says Daniel Hannan. Now the Upper House has the chance to play its ancestral role as the conscience of the nation

Spectator recommends

Sky - Official Site

Build your own Sky package online. Sky TV, Broadband & Talk only £16.

Sky TV, Broadband & Talk from £16 a Month

Sky TV & free broadband packages available from £16 a month. Choose from a standard free sky box, sky plus...


Spectator classifieds

ROME CENTRE

PORTA METRONIA, ROME Standing high on the top of one of the seven hills of Rome- the Coelian- this unique

City Breaks. ROME and PARIS

ROME and PARIS: over 350 holiday rentals apartments listed: visit  www.romanreference.com  and  www.parisreference.com or call +39 0648 903612.

Jewellery. RUFFS (Estd. 1904).

Goldsmiths by Design Welcome to Ruffs!  You have found a company of Goldsmiths that specialises in the manufacture, amongst other