Hi Stephan, your reply to my post from last night is spot on. Government waste is not enough to convince people of the case for lower taxes. Voters do believe that politicians waste their cash - more than half the public believe that £20+ of every £100 the Government spends is wasted - but they don't believe that politicians have the wherewithal to tackle waste.
YouGov (you may have heard of them!) asked the following question for us in August last year. "Do you agree or disagree that if Britain reformed public services and cut waste it could lower taxes without having to cut spending on vital services?" 66% agreed - up from 54% in January 2007. Disagreement was at 18% and 19% respectively. This is very encouraging for tax cutters.
What is the TPA doing to push forward the public service reform agenda? Look out for TPA papers on the number of deaths caused by the NHS on Friday, and a paper on prison reform by Lord Ramsbotham, former Chief Inspector of Prisons, over the weekend. This is our core battle for 2008.
For more information on this subject, CentreRight readers may be interested in our Better Government position paper and our 2007 Party Conference Season Poll.
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