Gurmaj Dhillon: The Conservatives can pursue a "Cuts and Growth" agenda without undermining recovery

Gurmaj Dhillon is a former Treasury official who recently served as an adviser to the Conservatives on police reform and youth justice policy. He is on the Conservative approved parliamentary candidates' list.

In this article I will seek to make the case that:

1. An ‘early and greater’ approach to fiscal consolidation is needed to restore the public finances back to health;
2. We should adopt a two-pronged approach: re-focusing public spending towards frontline public services; and applying the concept of GDP-targeting to public spending, while redefining the provision of welfare support; and
3. This approach should help to manage risks both around the process of economic recovery and the UK’s sovereign debt rating.

The political debate on how to restore the public finances back to health has largely focused on the timing and scale of reductions in public spending on one hand, and measures to stimulate private enterprise on the other. This has driven scrutiny of activity, headcount and pay across the public sector and publicly-funded bodies, and barriers to business growth and job creation in the private sector.

Advocates for ‘earlier and greater’ intervention on public spending (including the Conservatives) argue that this approach will help to both reduce the growing burden of public debt and stimulate private enterprise through reductions in corporate taxation (accompanied by a deregulatory agenda). Proponents of ‘later and gradual’ intervention (including Labour) point to the fragile nature of the anticipated recovery, arguing that shortfalls in banking credit and private consumption require that that government maintains demand in the economy, as individuals and businesses repair their respective balance sheets.

Gurmaj Dhillon is a former Treasury official who recently served as an adviser to the Conservatives on police reform and youth justice policy. He is on the Conservative approved parliamentary candidates' list.

Gurmaj Dhillon is a former Treasury official who recently served as an adviser to the Conservatives on police reform and youth justice policy. He is on the Conservative approved parliamentary candidates' list.

Gurmaj Dhillon: The Conservatives need to develop a more positive campaign narrative in order to help "seal the deal" with the electorate

Gurmaj Dhillon is a former Treasury official who recently served as an adviser to the Conservatives on police reform and youth justice policy. He is on the Conservative approved parliamentary candidates' list.

Beyond the recent polling returns, there is a sustained feeling that the Conservatives have not yet ‘sealed the deal’ with the British electorate. Many non-party aligned people I speak to seem resigned that Labour has probably ‘lost it’, rather than elated that we have actually ‘got it’. Perhaps there are several factors at play here.

Firstly, the public are rightfully still angry with the wider political establishment, given that the revelations around expenses have continued to dominate the domestic political news agenda. From the House of Commons to the Lords and now to the Standards and Privileges Committee – the steady drip, drip of stories continues to dampen what should be a surge in the public’s positive energy for a change of government. Instead they are left with the persistent and pervasive doubt whether anyone in our political institutions actually understands why voters and taxpayers are so angry with the current ‘way of doing politics.’

Secondly, although we are nowhere near out of the woods with regard to national economic recovery, there is a marginal risk that the electorate may succumb to a political version of the ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ – in other words, that they simultaneously blame the Labour Government for creating the conditions around our national predicament but also falsely identify them as the most reliable support through to hopeful recovery (at least compared to the political alternatives). Combined with an emphasis on the Tories perceived class ‘barrier’, this will obviously inform Labour’s campaign narrative in the run-up to the General Election.

Thirdly, although most polling confirms that the public realizes the country cannot continue on its current structural path, there is probably an underlying fear as to what the actual impact of change will mean for ordinary families, taxpayers and employees. Change, rather like planning permission, is fine until it happens to you, your family and your friends. The potential for ‘economic NIMBY-ism’ is all too clear when considering the scale of structural economic reform which the UK now requires in order to successfully compete in the future.

Gurmaj Dhillon is a former Treasury official who recently served as an adviser to the Conservatives on police reform and youth justice policy. He is on the Conservative approved parliamentary candidates' list.