Civil liberties, teaching of British history, freezing the BBC licence fee, maintaining the nuclear deterrent and energy security top Tory members' list of policy hopes

Yesterday we noted the Tory grassroots' strong Euroscepticism and their overwhelming preference for spending cuts rather than tax increases for budget deficit reduction.  Today we unveil the Tory membership's other policy instincts.

The Manchester United of the policy league table is a Civil Liberties Bill that overturns ID cards and other illiberal measures passed during the Labour years.  That wins 95% of Tory members' support.

The teaching of British history to become a central feature of every classroom gets the backing of very nearly as many; 94%.

A freeze in the BBC licence fee until further notice is also very popular.  89% of Tory members sign up to that.

Maintenance of Britain's nuclear deterrent comes fourth in the league table: 86% agree that "A nuclear free world is an illusion.  Nuclear weapons cannot be disinvented and Britain should maintain its independent nuclear deterrent."

There is also a strong message to the leadership about climate change.  86% agreed with this statement: "Within the next few years the average voter will be much more worried about the cost and availability of energy than they'll be worried about climate change."

So far, so familiar perhaps. Our grassroots poll all shows that party members are also committed to the broadening of the Conservative message that David Cameron has delivered in recent years – 84% support more general environmental measures, 81% support action against loan sharks, 70% support high-speed rail links connecting the north and south and 62% support investment in energy efficiency.

The other policy hopes are all listed below:

• The unemployed should work for their benefits: 85%
• Conservatives should take the opportunity of the fiscal crisis to end national pay bargaining in the public sector. Pay should be set locally for local conditions: 84%
• Conservative councils should encourage recycling, protect green spaces and plant more trees: 84%
• A Bill to protect the very poorest from loan sharks: 81%
• Scrapping all public sector advertising in newspapers and moving them all on to a dedicated internet site: 80%
• Repeal of the foxhunting ban should be included within a wider Civil Liberties Bill that repealed the Hunting With Dogs Act and other freedom-restricting laws: 76%
• If the next Conservative government has to increase taxes they should be temporary and there should be a promise to repeal them within three or four years: 82%
• High speed railways connecting London, Leeds and Manchester will create a more balanced and successful UK economy: 70%
• A power to recall MPs (ie sack mid-term) mayors and other elected officials who lose the confidence of voters between elections: 68%
• Divorce law reform that would see a cooling off period introduced before a couple could legally separate: 63%
• Businesses should be able to run schools for profit: 62%
• The Conservatives should hold an immediate referendum on whether Scotland's voters want independence from the rest of the UK or not. We should choose the timing of the referendum rather than the SNP and Alex Salmond: 62%
• A nationwide loan scheme for household efficiency improvements that would be paid back through the savings generated by lower energy bills: 62%
• Proportional representation should be abolished for European Elections: 57%
• All major cities to have directly-elected mayors: 55%
• A £50m fund for relationship and fatherhood education and a £25m fund for financial education of 14 year-olds (to be fully financed by getting more National Lottery money to good causes: 51%
• Fixed-term parliaments to stop Prime Ministers fiddling with election dates: 49%

Comments

[david1]

The only way to ensure energy security is to take energy transmission back into public ownership, and protect it from foreign exploiters.

[DavidNcl]

"The only way to ensure energy security is to take energy transmission back into public ownership, and protect it from foreign exploiters"

Wow! Are you insane? The only way to ensure the supply of anything is to let free markets supply it. Note that what we have now is a heavily regulated cartel.

[Pink Tory]

Pleased to see fixed term parliaments rejected

[13th spitfire]

I think there should also be a law like this:

For every new law you introduce you have to, BY LAW, remove another law. You cannot just keeping legislating and legislating - in the end we wont be able to do anything at all.

The Danish state works on this principle: One law in, one law out.

[Simon Cooke]

Love most of it but can we stop with the brainwashing kids proposals. Forcing an empire loyalist view of the world onto kids - regardless of what their parents want is what new labour would do.

[paleo]

High speed railways connecting London, Leeds and Manchester will create a more balanced and successful UK economy: 70%
-

I think one of the biggest disgraces of Labour time in office - and all the money they have thrown down the hole - is they haven't improved the rail infrastructure to enable greater social mobility. I would go further and want to connect Newcastle and Scotland to London and I would want it within an hour, that would enable mobility for people to get around the country.

I see that as vitally important, we need to get everywhere connected especially to the south and it needs to be fast.

The sad thing is we're spending 200 billion on the deficit and an infrastructure project like that would cost 1/5th of the current deficit but they won't and haven't done it. makes me very sad.

[BritishWatcher]

Simon Cooke,

There is nothing wrong with teaching kids about our history and making them feel proud to be British. A complete failure to do so over the past few decades because of liberal thinking has led to an increase in separatism and seriously damaged national unity.

Its also a good way to tackle extremism, people are less likely to want to blow up their own country if they are proud of it.

Kids should be taught the good and bad, at the moment they are taught the bad and the good is ignored because of political correctness.. Thats what you call brainwashing.

[Philip]

On the high speed rail line, for it to fulfil it's environmental benefits in reducing the need for domestic flights, it will need to go to Glasgow and Edinburgh and not stop at Leeds as in our rather weak proposal. There are not many flights from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. And a detour via Leeds would add to journey times to Scotland, and Leeds and the NE would not too significantly faster than can be achieved on the current East Coast main Line. The line should go northwards from the Manchester area direct to Scotland. Leeds and the NE need a separate direct high-speed line.

Just as crucially, Labour's belated rail electrification on Great Wwestern must be maintained and expanded to other routes, e.g. to E Midlands, to reduce our dependence on imported oil and further increase the already significant environment advantages of rail. Investment in the existing network (especially electrification) should not be cut back to pay for the high speed lines programme.

[Martin Marprelate- A Man in the Street!]

"Pleased to see fixed term parliaments rejected"

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WHY? All other elections are for fixed terms so why should Parliament not be fixed for either 4 or 5 years with the understanding that if a Government lost a Vote of No Confidence or splits in the Governing party caused it to lose its majority an early General Election could be called in such circumstances.

The PM of the day whether Tory or Labour should lose the advantage of being able to call an election when they want, after all I don't think a Local Council can dissolve itself and all Councillors stand for re-election, please correct me in that if I am wrong.

[Giles Marshall]

The teaching of British history 'policy' either shows a woeful ignorance amongst Tory grassroots about what is going on in state schools, or it represents a desire to dictate the style of teaching that would do credit to an old stalinist state.

British history has been the central focus of school history teaching for years. In the final three compulsory years of history in the secondary sector (Years 7 to 9), the course is wholly focused, with few exceptions, on British history, in a chronological progression from 1066 through to the twentieth century. At A-level, 50% of the first year focuses on an aspect of British history, and many schools choose to maintain that into the second year.

Let us hope that the party's leaders don't share the grassroots' failure to comprehend the British state school curriculum.

[John Eastwood]

Energy security. There are two ways of aproaching the problem.

Either - ditch goverment interferance about co2 and windmill building, and let people build coal fired stations without punitive penaltys. We are still sat on quite a lot of coal, a fair bit of which would be extractable if people really wanted to get at it.

Or - The government needs to interfer more, and make sure someone builds a sensible amount of nuclear capacity. I'm not a major fan of goverment interference, but now we have painted outselves well and truely into a corner, we may need to take drastic action to keep the lights on.

I think we are probably still the stage where either option is possible, but if the situation gets left much longer I would expect the first option will be the only one remaining.

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History / Education.

It is a fact that the teaching of UK history in school is now aproaching nill.
History in all schools now tends to be the superfical sudy of 1) the Tudors, 2)the causes and effect of WW2. Plus a bit about Woman's lib, and about a few (supposedly) gay historical individuals.

If you don't belive me, try asking a bunch of GCSE history A* graders:

Did England ever rule any part of France.
Which Einglish king conquered Wales?
Queen Anne - Wigg or Tory?
MagnaCarta was signed by which King?
Who was John Wycliffe, and with the translation of what is he associated?

I'd regard these are pretty straightforward basic questions, but I doubt many school leavers could answer any of them - the circulm used by almost all schools fails to cover most of the era's they relate too at-all.

Given that history tends (if nothing else) to repeat itself, it might be worthwhile taking action to ensure that children get a basic grounding of national history, and also to make an effort to vary from school to school the periods taught in greater depth, so that the collective knowlage of the next generation is much broader.

[John Wrexham]

I'd take a bit more seriously, the conservative grassroots' interest in british history, if conservative local authorities weren't shutting down local museums which do more to promote knowledge and understanding of our history among children and adults than our state school sector will ever manage. moreover the museum sector encourage interest in our past at a far lower cost.

we don't need the profit motive to create good schools. the best schools in this country are run as charitable trusts and it's only a labour government that could possibly see education as a not a social benefit viz their forcing the charity commission to hobble our best schools with new regulations. the real investigation that is required is into our state schools and why, despite massively increased funding (aka investment in circles!) they are letting the next generation down!!

[DavidNcl]

"we don't need the profit motive to create good schools".

Yes we do. Altrusim or relgious zeal are poor subsitutes.

Do you think your childrens clothes, home or food would be better provided by the market or by the charitable trusts or the state.

Why do you think the quality of cars has increased for all of this century and yet the quality of education has fallen?

[Left Outside]

Did England ever rule any part of France.
Which Einglish king conquered Wales?
Queen Anne - Wigg or Tory?
MagnaCarta was signed by which King?
Who was John Wycliffe, and with the translation of what is he associated?

I'd regard these are pretty straightforward basic questions, but I doubt many school leavers could answer any of them - the circulm used by almost all schools fails to cover most of the era's they relate too at-all.

Just because you feel those things are important doesn't mean they are. Not one of those questions couldn't be answered in 30 seconds by someone with access to the internet, or 5 minutes in a well stocked and catalogued library.

Learning at GCSE about identifying the bias in the sources you are studying is far more important than learning a linear history of events which someone else thought were important.

We all have our penchants for different Histories but we shouldn't legislate on how its taught.

[opit]

Which British history would they like taught, I wonder ?
Would it include things like tortures carried out by the army in Kenya or the loss of 12,000 at the Khyber Pass in 1842...where military convoys in the latest attacks on poppy cartels were themselves attacked when protection money wasn't paid ?
Would it include particulars of the subjugations of various people by the British Raj and the 'clearance' of Acadia and the background of the Balfour Declaration ?
Would internet literacy be taught and libraries be allowed to function without censorship ?
Would Search Engines give results that were not totally perverted by commercial interests and government blacklists ?

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