Theresa May MP: Back to business - and with the bit between our teeth

This summer, we’ve experienced the usual silly season.  Not content with the Cornish great white shark, the latest ‘discovery’ of Lord Lucan, and Jasmine the piglet, we’ve also seen our fair share of mad political stories, which I wrote about recently.  But now, it’s time to get back to business.

And the Conservative Party is getting back to business with the bit between our teeth.  Throughout the summer, the Party’s policy commissions have been reporting, and the remaining reports are due soon.  The commissions have brought fresh thinking to tough public policy questions on social justice, economic competitiveness, fighting global poverty, and security.  Of course, not all of their proposals will end up as party policy, but the commissions have played an enormous role in the revitalisation of the Party’s generation of ideas.

In the coming months, solid policies and a clear philosophy for government will emerge.  These will define the battle that will be fought at the next general election.

But before that day comes, we will be taking the fight to Gordon Brown and his Labour Party.  In just the last week or so, we have landed a couple of significant blows.

The first was on Gordon Brown’s NHS cuts.  However Labour tried to spin it, there is no disguising the fact that hospitals up and down the country face closure and cuts.  When A&E admissions and birth rates are up, how can it possibly make sense to close A&E and maternity departments?  Whatever Labour ministers protest, Gordon Brown’s new health minister, Sir Ara Darzi, says quite openly, “the days of the district general hospital are over”.  Thanks to Labour’s gross mismanagement of the National Health Service, and David Cameron’s very personal campaign to protect our hospitals, we now have a consistent poll lead on health.

And this week, we have highlighted the Government’s total failure to make our streets safe.  Labour have passed law after law – and all the time, violent crime has gone up and up.  Jacqui Smith claimed that under Labour gun crime is down.  But – yet again – this turned out to be a Labour con trick, as David Davis has exposed.  Instead, and as David Cameron set out this week, we need a comprehensive three pronged approach: strengthening the criminal justice system, radical police reform to enable officers to spend more time on the beat, and an effort to tackle family and social breakdown.

These recent achievements are not a blip or one-off.  We will keep up the pressure on Gordon Brown and his government.  We will continue to hold them to account for their broken manifesto promise to hold a referendum on the EU constitution.  We will hold them to account for the fact that half of eleven year olds are incapable of reading, writing and counting properly.  We will hold them to account for the shameful way in which they treat members of the armed services.   And as we hold them to account for their failures, we will also develop our own detailed policies.

So whenever Gordon Brown chooses to call a general election, we will be ready for him.  He has no democratic mandate.  He has a reputation tainted by his failures after a decade in office.  And he has no new ideas.  An early election?  Bring it on.

Comments

[Matt Wright]

Interesting reading the defeatist claptrap of the Jorgen/Tolkinghome/DavisFan headbangers who have clearly wished the party ill for many months and appear to relish the thought of allowing permanent Labour rule. We are in a battle and we fight as we stand with what we have and as a team and sod the whingers. In every threat there is an opportunity and if we are bold and focused we may well win. If Brown calls an early election fine, it will be so crass and cut-and-run, we should relish the fight and tell the public so. His suprise should be met by our own suprises for him. We should and I am sure will, fight a bold and very focused battle aimed bang on his weakneses. Perhaps not being able to have more time to prepare will help by forcing us to focus on what will really count and nothing else,

Matt

[Stephen Tolkinghorne]

"We are in a battle and we fight as we stand with what we have...."

Grrrrrrr...

[Georgia]

Well well well....interesting point there about calling a snap election, Theresa. INTERESTING POINT INDEED.

[Dave Wills]

So Ms May will you show you are a woman of your word and believe in honour? Please tell us when you (as a Prime Minister with no democratic mandate) will call a new general Election? Thanks.