The conservativehome.com blog

I believe...

Do you remember Michael Howard’s January 2004 statement of beliefs? They were criticised at the time for their motherhood-and-apple-pie character but they did amount to an aborted CCO attempt to embrace positive politics. I recently came across a Canadian ex-blogger’s beliefs statement and I thought I’d try one of my own. I’ve outlined at least one belief for each of conservativehome.com’s main ten themes:

Europe's 'Chikelsconi' politicians

Italy is in recession. French growth fell to 0.2% in the latest quarter. German unemployment stands at over five million. A new conservativehome.com memo (celebrating France's 'non' vote) spotlights the economic weakness of Europe's centre-right parties:

"Angela Merkel, German CDU Leader, is often compared to Margaret Thatcher but there is little reason to believe that she will be any more of an economic realist than Chirac or Berlusconi, two other centre-right leaders. Chirac and Berlusconi have presided over their two countries’ woes and Ms Merkel shares their views on the big questions facing Europe’s economies.

Continental Europe’s ‘Chikelsconi’ centre-right establishment support the EU Treaty and its inflexible employment rights and the centralisation of power in both the Brussels Commission and the weakly-accountable European Parliament. The Chikelsconi politicians are also unanimous in their support for the euro. Frankfurt’s European Central Bank has failed for two main reasons – (1) it has flattened growth because of its over-anxious attitude to inflation, and (2) its one-size-fits-all monetary policy has been unable to simultaneously suit the needs of every eurozone economy.

The Sunday Times’ David Smith* believes that if the euro continues to fail it will be replaced but not until the current “generation of politicians committed to EU integration and monetary union” retires."

Who will fact check the fact checkers? (Part II)

For one glorious day in March, hope dawned that the next election might be fought on the basis of truth. The occasion was a press conference at which ITN’s Nick Robinson skewered Tony Blair over his claim that the Tories were going to cut spending by £35 billion. As Mr Robinson made pointedly clear, the fact was that Conservative spending plans were to increase spending at a slighly slower rate than Labour’s. Tony Blair was left flapping around like a fish out of water, which was appropriate given the Billingsgate location of the press conference.

Sadly this was a one off, and now that the campaign is underway Blair is back in his element i.e. the aquiescence of the media to blatant Labour fibbing. Hence, Mr Blair’s entirely predictable reaction to Conservative pension proposals: They don’t have the money for it, say Labour. The Lib Dems follow suit. This is unthinking, lazy politics which doesn’t deserve the air time it gets – or, at least, not without a monstering from the likes of Mr Robinson.

But instead what we get is this sort of thing from BBC online’s Election fact check*. There’s nothing much wrong with the “facts” that are listed – though they’d be better described as statements of the bleeding obvious. But just look at what is ambitiously described as a “conclusion”:

“All parties are going through their rivals' spending plans with a fine toothcomb; a number of disagreements on projected savings, for example on immigration policy, have been unearthed. The Tories have had to explain that they would not be introducing their tax cuts immediately. But given that so many details of all plans are yet to be known, and because no-one can predict exactly how the economy is going to perform, the overall battle so far has resulted in a draw.”

As conclusions go, this really couldn’t be any more inconclusive.

So, in conclusion, BBC online’s Election fact check gets a mediocre 4 out of 10.

With their pensions policies, the Tories are at their best

Many commentators of all political shades criticised last week's Tory campaign. Strident messages on immigration, in particular, appeared to suggest that Tories were more interested in energising their ‘core vote’ than presenting themselves as a credible government-in-waiting. The modest opinion poll swings to Labour and the LibDems over the last few days confirmed that the public were unimpressed by the Tories' guerilla-style tactics.

But over the last 24 hours the Tory campaign has become much more agreeable and grown-up. The £1.7bn plan to boost private savings is a sensible attempt to address one of Labour's biggest policy failures. Gordon Brown's 'Robert Maxwell' £5bn a year raid on private pension funds ruined the industry. His complex system of pensions means-testing has (1) undermined the incentive to save for many people approaching retirement and (2) left a million poorer pensioners failing to claim what they need to get by.

Independent experts believe that Britons need to start saving £50bn more - every year - for retirement. The Labour manifesto is silent on what needs to be done about this massive pension savings deficit (as it is also silent on other big issues like Britain's looming energy crisis). Voters are told to wait until Adair Turner's Pensions Commission reports - conveniently timetabled for after the election - before Labour will determine its policy. That isn't acceptable.