I have been pretty hard on Cameron and Osborne during the financial crisis for three reasons: their failure to shoot down Brown’s fake narrative, the sheer size of the open goal in front of them, but most of all because of their ability. Both can do far better than this, neither suffer from the politicians’ greatest weakness – being wedded to past mistakes. Some CoffeeHousers ask why I have such faith. The reason lies in Cameron and Osborne’s accomplishments so far:
1) Radical welfare reform, with an agenda so solid that Labour has copied rather than fought it. And in Chris Grayling they have found an energetic Shadow Minister who does his own research, produces his own news stories, fights the battle day and night and can be absolutely relied upon to deliver what will be the toughest task of the Cameron government. Right agenda, right man.
2) School reform agenda, which would give low-income parents a choice of independent schools, each competing for the right to educate their child. Cameron could down in history as the PM who ended the scandal of sink schools for the poor, which is Labour’s deplorable legacy. In Michael Gove, Cameron has found someone who understands the power and potential of the choice agenda, knows the bulk of the work must be done in Opposition and is 100% committed to what could be a revolution which ends the perennial British parental worry about education. Right agenda, right man.
3) Tax cuts. Both the inheritance tax and the council tax freeze set the right template – making people better off. More are in the arsenal, funded by cuts in wasteful spending. One can argue, as I do, that you need more of this. But the weapon is there, ready to be deployed. Sadly some Tories are still stuck in fighting wars over this, and can’t debate this rationally. Letwin is still there, confusing everything. The totemic importance attached to the word “responsibility” also clouds thinking, as they start with the word and work backwards. Yet Cameron and Osborne are self-correcting machines . That’s why I suspect a firm tax-cutting message will emerge, but with a “we have to fix the broken economy first” preamble. Done properly, and with mini tax cuts, the public will bite.
4) The family. Cameron wants to be the most pro-family Tory leader in a generation, realising that the family is the first, best and cheapest source of health, wealth and education. He has grasped the importance of the issue, and the harm government policies do in paying couples to break up. Given that the Tories are still haunted by the “back to basics” disaster of the Major years, and the deep unfashionablility of the message, this change in positioning is no small feat.
5) The media. CoffeeHousers may say this is trivial, but the work Cameron has done selling his ideas to the press is remarkable. No Tory could get a fair hearing in the last decade, and both Cameron and Osborne have put incredible work in changing that. So when they do get a decent economic policy, it will get a better hearing.
Cameron became leader (and Osborne, Shadow Chancellor) during the Brown bubble, which was an intellectual phenomenon as well as a financial one. It was then assumed in those days Brown had been a good Chancellor rather than a good confidence trickster. Cameron and Osborne thought their message on the economy was one of reassurance, modifying rather than rewriting Brown’s policies. They were wrong, as was most of Westminster. Now, with unemployment soaring – but this time on top of 5.2m on benefits – we can all see the harm Brown’s policies did and the opportunities they missed. So this period of Tory silence may well be one of Corfu-induced reflection while a decent economic policy is forged. No other Tory opposition team produced anything like the above list. That is why there is every reason to believe that Cameron and Osborne will keep adding to it.
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