Any questions for Liam Fox?

Liam Fox was a GP before becoming MP for Woodspring in 1992.  He was a minister at the Foreign Office for the last year of the Major government.

In opposition Dr Fox has been Shadow Health Secretary, Party Chairman, Shadow Foreign Secretary and is now Shadow Defence Secretary.

He contested the Tory leadership last year and emphasised leaving the EPP, supporting the war in Iraq, human rights and mending Britain's broken society.  He was eliminated from the contest to succeed Michael Howard in the second round of voting amongst Tory MPs.

Last December he married Dr Jesme Baird, director of patient care at the Roy Castle Foundation.

He recently used an interview with GMTV to state that the Conservative Party must balance its new emphasis on green and justice issues with  "traditional Conservative policies of wealth creation and of national security and of being tough of crime and so on".

Your questions for Dr Fox should be posted on the comments thread below or emailed to tim@conservativehome.com.

Comments

[matt wright]

Liam, what do you feel are the 4 key issues that we must gain the voters trust on to win?

Matt

[Dan Paterson]

Liam, would a Conservative Govt. with you as Defence Minister oppose or support moves by the European Defence agency to centralise the R&T budgets into one pool as they are apparently currently trying to do?

[Christina]

Liam, what could a future Conservative Government do to help people who suffer from mental health problems?

[Henry Edward-Bancroft]

Liam, if you had had longer as Chairman of the party what would you have liked to have done?

[James Maskell]

The Conservative Party policy is to stay in Iraq. How long do you think that British forces should stay in Iraq?

[Edward]

Michael Heseltine famously predicted on the back of a napkin that he'd be PM by 60. When will you be PM?

[Will James]

Liam, if David Cameron continues his leadership with an unbalanced emphasis on 'modernising issues', as opposed to Conservative 'core' issues, what will your response be?

[Andrew Woodman]

Do you believe the withdrawing of the Conservative whip in the European parliament from Roger Helmer was unfair and unjust, and was there any more you could have done as Shadow Foreign Secretary to stop and reverse the decision?

[johnC]

Do you think the Conservative party should have an open debate about the structural reform of the NHS, with a social insurance model as one of the options ?

[Lambo]

Liam

Who was responsbible for the poor performance at the 2005 General Election, Howard as leader, Cameron as manifesto writer, Crosby as campaign leader or yourself as Chairman?

Damon

[JT]

Most prominent politicians in the Conservative party pretend to ignore that Britain's membership of the EU now prevents the Party from proposing so many of the changes this country needs, from trade reforms to restoration of our fishing stocks to the ability to deport asylum seekers who go on to commit murder and rape here.

When will you tell Mr Cameron that unless he faces up honestly to what his predecessors in the Party have done to democracy in this country and we leave the EU and repeal the ECHR, the Party will remain an irrelevance to many ordinary people?

[Peter]

Many conservatives found your 'broken society' diagnosis depressingly accurate, but were perhaps more sceptical about how it would work in attracting new support for the Conservative Party. How can we make the fight against family breakdown and its associated miseries an electorally successful part of our platform?

[clive Elliot]

Hi Liam, did you know that the only reason you didn't win the leadership was because everyone saw that the next G.E. couldn't put us a choice between three Scotsmen?

[Chad]

Do you think a referendum on EU withdrawal is the best way to end the division on the EU to set a clear path for the next generation?

[malcolm]

Regarding our military commitment in Afghanistan.Do you believe the British force assembled is sufficient for the task set for it?If the answer is no how many would you commit?
Do you also believe that these British forces should destroy the poppy fields in their sector or continue to turn a blind eye to the production of Heroin.

[blogga]

Dear Dr Fox,

Do you think that the changes to the candidate recruitment process will permanently change the party for the better, or do you think that it will simply dilute the party with dangerous pinko-socialist-feminists?
Also : How 'A' do you think the A-list is (my A list would include people that are famous)?

[benc]

Many party activists wish to see the 'balance' you talked about on GMTV. Do you expect this to happen ? What are you doing to ensure it does ?

[DougR]

Liam, I believe the main contributors to britain brokens society are drugs and welfare dependancy. 'Workfare' and 'identified cashless society' are potential solutions. Have they been considered?

[John Moss]

Dr Fox,

Do you believe that while centre ground "issues" like healthcare and education, pensions and crime are the battle ground, fighting on them with radical, evidence-based, conservative solutions might gain a better response from the electorate than a "me-too" approach?

[Goldie]

Dear Dr. Fox:

Thank you for your inspired leadership campaign. This is somewhat outside of your direct brief, but do you have sympathy for the idea that Britain should seek to formalize the existing informal 'Anglosphere' alliances, specifically e.g. by joining NAFTA or negotiating a new trans-atlantic freed-trade zones or in other ways cooperate more directly with several countries that are more natural allies of Britain than the continental members of the EU?

[Derek]

Do you believe that it is still possible to form a credible new group in the European Parliament so we can fulfill the commitment to leave the EPP-ED group which both David Cameron and you made?

[Annabel Herriott]

Liam, Do you think it is even remotely feasible to buy up all the heroin in afghanistan for NHS therapeutic purposes, ie pain relief in terminal conditions, instead of trying to get them to stop growing the stuff?(impossible without more loss of life) The farmers might even go for it.

[William]

If Britain withdraws from the EU, how much faster could our economy grow without being barred from being able to trade freely around the globe?

How much could tax rates fall, with the surge in growth?

How much could living standards rise?

Why are the Conservatives not campaigning to implement the recommendations of the Warsaw-based Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights as regards allowing parties to 'harvest' postal votes?

[Mark Clarke]

Conservatives often talk about overstretch in the armed forces. Do you agree that they are overstretched? And, if so, would you fix this by reducing troop commitments (in which case, where?) or increasing the size of the military (in which case, how much?)

[Simon C]

Can the UN be reformed so that is becomes an effective force for regional and global security in the 21st Century? If so, how? If not, what should be done?

[Editor]

Thanks everyone. Enough questions!

[Phoenix]

Dear Dr Fox

Gordon Brown (if/when prime minister) has tentatively committed the UK to some form of renewal of the Strategic Nuclear Deterrent at a possible cost of £25billion.
Undoubtedly, the Conservative Party will endorse in principle such a strategic decision when it comes before parliament. However, these times are very different from those of the Cold War. We do not know who our enemy will be in years to come and it is an increasingly unstable and unpredictable world. The UK is already committed to significant conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While I understand the need for a Strategic Nuclear Deterrent to ensure our position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, I do have difficulty reconciling the expenditure of so much money when we have a nuclear weapon system which we cannot/would not use, we do not have a modern tactical nuclear ability and we are sending our conventional forces into current conflicts with wholly inadequate weapons/equipment. Is there not an argument for ensuring that the forces the UK government currently commit to operations are as well equipped as it is possible to be, before those same politicians grandstand on the world stage and spend money we don't have buying weapons we don't need/won't use?

[Andrew Morrison]

Dr Fox,

What you said in your leadership bid speech at the Conservative Party Conference in 2006 on mental health was very considered.

Although David Cameron has already pledged (and rightly so) our full support to the NHS, will there be any specific policies on tackling mental health, and providing support to the friends and family of the victims of mental ailments?

No amount of economic growth, environmentalism nor education will overcome the curse of depression, for instance, so to increase 'general wellbeing' as Mr Cameron said we have to tackle this issue and mention it at length in our next manifesto.