Benedict Brogan uses his Telegraph column to list Tory MPs' concerns that Cameron will be a trimmer rather than a radical. My responses are in italics after each paragraph.
- On tax... "The Tory Right remains disbelieving of George Osborne's decision to accept – for the foreseeable future – Labour's new 50p rate. They would prefer sizeable increases in indirect taxes, specifically VAT, booze and fags – to allow some cuts in business and personal tax. The Tories, they argue, should be about long-term certainty on tax rates. For 20 years, business knew that the top rate was capped by consensus at 40p; restoring that certainty should be a Conservative clarion call." George Osborne's plans to progressively reduce corporation tax and make Britain a headquarters for international business should reassure all supply-side conservatives.
- On immigration... "[Traditionalists] see Labour moving to the Right, with self-serving confessions that its open-door policy has been wrong all along, and wonder why Conservatives shouldn't follow." I don't think the Tory cap on immigration from outside the EU is tough enough (I'm with Nicholas Soames on this question) but Labour cannot recover credibility on this issue.
- On civil liberties... "Spend any time with a Conservative MP these days, and at some point he will report his constituents' anger over police and bureaucratic intrusion. "Why aren't we promising to roll all this back, to pull down CCTV cameras, to abolish the Independent Safeguarding Authority, to tear down the human rights industry?" says one." I think this is an unfair charge. Dominic Grieve has put forward an eleven point plan to reverse Labour's illiberal measures.
- On the family... "[The Cornerstone Group of social conservatives] suspect [Cameron's] pledge to abolish the penalty for couples in the tax credit system, and make marriage and civil partnerships pay, will tumble down the priority list in the name of fiscal realism." This is likely given the public finances but there are other pro-family measures that will be enacted quickly. IDS won't have agreed to serve in a Tory government unless he believes Cameron is half-serious about the social justice agenda.
- On welfare... "If the Tories want to be radical, their MPs wonder, then why not put a time limit on paying benefits, as happened successfully in America?" I hope we'll eventually do this.
- On education... "Those of a suspicious disposition claim – with scant evidence – that he is wobbling on whether to allow private-sector operators to become involved in the setting up of a new generation of independent schools. Others, who take an interest in Swedish models of education, complain about his seeming reluctance to allow those who do set up schools under the scheme to make a profit." On the contrary, policy is moving in the right direction on education. The Guardian and Fraser Nelson have suggested new schools will be able to make profits.
My biggest area of concern is public spending control. George Osborne has only given us a very small indication of the efficiencies that he will make. His party conference speech was widely seen as brave but does not tackle even one tenth of Gordon Brown's budget deficit. Time is still on Osborne's side but we do need to hear much, much more. By that I don't mean lots of detail but we do need something like Andrew Lilico's suggestion of broad, strategic economies.
So are the concerns highlighted by Brogan fair at all? Yes. David Cameron is an authentic, full spectrum conservative but he is also very tactical, very focused on opinion polls. Only time will tell which of those two great characteristics will dominate the premiership we all hope for. For the time being he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Tim Montgomerie
