“Greener, more family-friendly, more local”. Excellent. But after ten months of David and George, for most party members here on the Bournemouth prom the big economic question remains unanswered - what are we really going to do about tax and spend?
Labour have whacked Britain with billions of extra taxes. By 2008 their own projections show the tax-GDP ratio 4 percentage points higher than in 1996-97. And that’s on top of their huge wobbling mountain of public and private debt.
So while “sharing the proceeds of growth” was a neat holding statement, history says we will not have that luxury. Brown’s legacy will be a sluggish unbalanced economy, where all the choices will be tough.
Alongside that, voters are already asking why we’re paying so much for such woeful and wasteful public services. And they want answers that go beyond “trust me”.
Recent polling evidence points the way. August’s TaxPayers’ Alliance poll highlighted the contempt in which voters hold politicians. But the poll also told us there is strong support for some real beef - lower taxes combined with fundamental public service reform - if only politicians could be trusted to deliver it.
Yesterday’s worrisome Telegraph/YouGov poll underlined the same message – voters aren’t dumb, and even with a likable telegenic leader like David Cameron, “trust me” is no longer enough.
Which is why we must all hope those reports of an “almighty bust-up” between Lord Forsyth’s Tax Commission and our Shadow Chancellor are wrong. Especially since the Commission is reportedly proposing exactly the kind of dynamic tax radicalism once espoused by George himself.
So this week, George is firmly in the spotlight. From platform to fringe, we’ll be listening intently to what he has to say, and finding out what members think about it. It’s time to wake up and smell the beef.
Wat Tyler edits Burning our Money.
Cameron is not saying 'trust me'. He's saying that he will trust you.
The top-down big government world we now live in is not of his making. He wants to change it. It is completely barmy that so many Conservatives are arguing with Cameron. He is advocating exactly what they are about. He is quite clear that he cannot offer tax cuts until the public sector is reformed. And he is quite clear that he will not put tax cuts infront of the reform.
I am getting sick of all the 'give us more beef'angle as above from wat. Listen to what Cameron is saying, and work from there. Don't expect him to jettison his programme. It's well thought out and a lot more intelligent than you are saying it is.
The media game in the UK requires Cameron to look 'not a Tory'. He's good at the image game as he has to be, but don't push that into saying that he is using image over and above substance. He isn't.
I hope that the army of Tory doubters relax a bit this week and start listening to David Cameron's actual words, and beleiving some of them. He's a lot more intelligent than Blair.
People are not used to listening after ten years of Blair. They assume that everything spoken in politics is nonsense, beacause for ten years it has been. Here is the moment of change, a new leader who refuses point blank to promise what is not achievable, and everyone slagging him off for doing exatly whats needed - putting sense and intelligence back into managing our affairs. Give him a bloody break will you.
Posted by: Tapestry | October 01, 2006 at 02:43 PM
Well said! I'm thoroughly looking forward to this conference. I trust David Cameron, I can see what he's doing as someone who has studied political marketing for years, and there is 'beef'- beef on schools, and hospitals and issues of personal freedom that the people on the street care about.
Posted by: Afleitch | October 01, 2006 at 02:49 PM