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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

Spend just a few minutes on the campaign trail for next week’s local elections and it suddenly becomes clear why Labour MPs got into such a mutinous mood. When they happily voted through Gordon Brown’s abolition of the 10p starting rate of income tax last year, it was argued that having 5.3 million pay a little more was worth it in order to be able to say that the basic rate of income tax had fallen. No one foresaw what is now clear: just how badly this ruse would go down with the public.

The first half-hour I spend with Tory activists in Salford gives a taste of the anger. ‘I’m a pensioner, for God’s sake, why does he take more of what little I have?’ asks one householder. ‘I’ve had enough of Mr Brown’s financial tricks,’ says a lady outside a florist. ‘He says this won’t affect anyone but that’s untrue, this will hit one in five families,’ says the manager of the Spar shop. All of them pledge to vote Conservative for the first time, in an area where David Cameron needs votes the most.

The Tories can scarcely believe their luck. Here is a tax bomb, planted under the low-paid and primed to detonate just ahead of the 1 May election. And all an unintended consequence of a manoeuvre in Gordon Brown’s final Budget. ‘At least the poll tax was deliberate,’ one activist chortled to me. Mr Brown’s complicated compensation offered on Wednesday may have assuaged Labour rebels. But it will not salve the anger on the doorsteps. The result may well be the Tories taking North Tyneside and Bury councils next week, with the possibility of a council or two in Wales.

So much attention is focusing on the Ken v. Boris battle in London that the English and Welsh local elections have almost been forgotten. But not by Mr Cameron. To win the next general election he needs to take scores of seats in the north, and sees these contests as a useful drill to get the local apparatus battle-ready. In the last few weeks, target areas have been carpet-bombed with shadow Cabinet members. The Tory activists I meet proudly list the recent visitors to Greater Manchester: Alan Duncan, Francis Maude, Theresa Villiers and Mr Cameron himself.

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Nigel

April 25th, 2008 7:40pm

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

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

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.

Kenneth Allen

April 29th, 2008 7:48pm

Sounds great. When can we expect a resurgence in Scotland? We sure need one

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