What slogans should Conservatives march under?

By Tim Montgomerie
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It seems Robert Halfon MP and I have had similar ideas in recent months. When we launched StrongAndCompassionate.com last October I used a marching crowd as our logo (above right). Rob is using something similar (above left) for his 10p tax campaign.

The labour movement prides itself on its crusades. What are the great moral ambitions of the conservative movement? Here are a few suggestions...

LOW TAX FOR THE LOW PAID

MORE HOMES FOR YOUNG FAMILIES

SKILLS FOR OUR YOUNG PEOPLE

JUSTICE FOR EVERY PENSIONER

MORE JOBS, LESS WELFARE

EUROPE: LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE

EVERY GENERATION SHOULD REPAY ITS OWN DEBTS

What slogans would you put on a Tory banner? My plan is to design some for ConHome's 9th March conference.

The Conservatives and women - a week-long series on ConHome

By Paul Goodman
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Margaret Thatcher understood the importance of the women's vote and this newspaper advert was produced under her leadership.

Tim Montgomerie writes in today's Times (£) that David Cameron and Nick Clegg's joint appearance today will presage "childcare initiatives, a single-tier state pension and help for elderly people to afford long-term care. Women will be the biggest beneficiaries of this programme — the 50 per cent of the population who just happen to be least impressed with what the coalition has achieved so far".  So this is not a bad day in which to launch a week-long ConservativeHome series on the Conservatives and women - with a stress on winning votes.

Such a series will provoke at least as many questions as it answers.  Women are sometimes bracketed by the Left alongside ethnic minorities or gay people.  But does it really make sense to consider half the population in this way?  Indeed, how much sense does it make to talk of "women's issues" at all?  Are there "men's issues"?  Should childcare, for example - which Elizabeth Truss, the Education Minister, will consider on this site tomorrow - be considered a women's issue alone, and if so why?

Continue reading "The Conservatives and women - a week-long series on ConHome" »

IDS says it's unfair that benefits are rising faster than wages. Clegg agrees.

By Tim Montgomerie
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2013 starts with some good news. After repeatedly attacking his Coalition partners (on Europe, on wanting to cut welfare too much, on property taxes and general Right-wingery in recent weeks) the Deputy Prime Minister has turned his fire on Labour this morning. Let's hope it's a New Year's resolution.

Writing for The Times (£) Mr Clegg accuses the Labour Party of failing to show any leadership on the economic problems facing Britain. "The country," he writes, "has undergone the biggest economic crisis in living memory, yet they offer no explanation of how they’d get us out of this mess, nor any admission of responsibility for their part in creating it."

The topical focus of the Lib Dem leader's article is Labour's decision to oppose the 1% squeeze in benefits that is due to be voted on by MPs next week:

"They say they’ll vote against limiting the planned rise in benefits to 1 per cent. That means they believe welfare claimants should see a bigger rise than the 1 per cent that public sector workers will get on their wages — which they support. So Labour must show how they’d pay for it. Would they cut hospital budgets? Schools? Defence?"

Continue reading "IDS says it's unfair that benefits are rising faster than wages. Clegg agrees." »

Eight pieces of New Year advice for David Cameron

By Tim Montgomerie
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In my Times column (£) I offer eight pieces of New Year advice to David Cameron:

1. Offer an In/Out referendum in your January speech on the EU. Nothing else will quite restore goodwill amongst traditional supporters in the country and press. In today's Sun, Trevor Kavanagh agrees.
2. Communicate regret rather than relish about having to squeeze benefits. The squeeze is necessary for deficit reduction and to incentivise the leap from benefits to work but no Conservative should give any impression that below inflation increases will be easy for already hard-pressed families.
3. Throw everything at the IT challenge that endangers the Universal Credit. Whitehall isn't good at IT and the Coalition's reputation for competence is at stake if this flagship reform fails.
4. Don't retreat on gay marriage but do reassure Christian and other traditionalists that you're are on their side. Recognise marriage in the tax system. Promote faith schools. Fight against religious persecution overseas. I presented other ideas on Christmas Eve.
5. Give more one-to-one interviews and fewer speeches because you are at your most persuasive in these fora.
6. Respond to the Lib Dem disloyalty. Don't personally sink to Clegg's level but authorise Grant Shapps to counter punch at the constant Lib Dem attacks on the Conservative Party.
7. Lovebomb your party for the next two-and-a-half years. Appoint someone like David Burrowes MP as a second PPS to help you reconnect with the parliamentary party.

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Cameron's Christmas message described "as the most Christian of its kind from an incumbent prime minister"

By Tim Montgomerie
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The Telegraph describes David Cameron's Christmas message "as the most Christian of its kind from an incumbent prime minister". The Daily Mail concludes that Mr Cameron "went further than ever last night when he quoted from the Bible, referring to Jesus as ‘the light of all mankind’ and the ‘Prince of Peace’".

Here is the key section of the message that has aroused reporters' interest and is being interpreted as an attempt to woo Christians offended by the Coalition's plans to introduce gay marriage:

"Christmas also gives us the opportunity to remember the Christmas story – the story about the birth of Jesus Christ and the hope that he brings to the countless millions who follow him. The Gospel of John tells us that in this man was life, and that his life was the light of all mankind, and that he came with grace, truth and love. Indeed, God’s word reminds us that Jesus was the Prince of Peace."

It is certainly more emphatic than the way he described his faith in 2008:

"I believe, you know. I am a sort of typical member of the Church of England. As Boris Johnson once said, his religious faith is a bit like the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns: it sort of comes and goes. That sums up a lot of people in the Church of England. We are racked with doubts, but sort of fundamentally believe, but don't sort of wear it on our sleeves or make too much of it. I think that is sort of where I am."

Read Mr Cameron's full Christmas message here.

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Get that lamp from under that bushel! Tories need to wear their hearts on their sleeves.

By Tim Montgomerie
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Michael Howard wrote a good piece for yesterday's Times (£) in which he worried about the regulatory demands that the state is placing on the hospice movement. He was championing the same issue on this morning's Today programme. The ex-Tory leader was speaking as Chairman of Help the Hospices. I wonder if people who never much liked Mr Howard when he was Employment and Home Secretary or Leader of the Opposition might have been willing to give him the benefit of more of the doubt if they'd known about what has been his long-standing support for the hospice movement. More broadly I wonder if more people might be willing to give the whole Conservative Party more of the benefit of the doubt if they knew the extent to which Tory parliamentarians in general support good causes....

• Michael Gove on faster adoption...
• Robert Halfon against petrol prices...
• Damian Hinds against excessive payday lending rates...
• Andrea Leadsom arguing for childhood early intervention...
• Jeremy Lefroy leading parliamentary efforts against malaria in the developing world...
• Mark Pritchard campaigning for a ban on circus misuse of animals...
• David Burrowes for the release of Gary McKinnon...
• Nick de Bois against knife crime...
• Gavin Barwell and Charles Walker campaigning for greater understanding of mental illnesss..
• Steve Barclay for the victims of dangerous driving...
• Cheryl Gillan on autism...
• Nadhim Zahawi's campaigning and fundraising for vaccination programmes in Afghanistan...
• Tim Loughton on freedom for Tibet...
• Robert Buckland's leadership on human rights freedoms...
• Baroness Berridge and Angie Bray on religious freedom...
• Paul Maynard for language therapies...
• Claire Perry against online porn...
• Andrew Murrison, Liam Fox and our own Lord Ashcroft for military veterans...

Continue reading "Get that lamp from under that bushel! Tories need to wear their hearts on their sleeves." »

An ordinary government in extraordinary times

By Tim Montgomerie
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My initial verdict on last week's Autumn Statement was that it was full of some clever politics but was disappointing on an economic front. That view has hardened since. We may have a stronger economic punch than Labour but do we have an economic punch that is big enough to flourish in a very competitive world economy?

Readers of ConHome may not have been surprised that the deficit will still be £73 billion at the end of this parliament - we had plenty of advance warning - but we should still be . The deficit is the Coalition's central project. The Coalition was going to eliminate it. It isn't even going to come close to doing so. Debt will still be rising at the end of this parliament and will be rising into the next. For years to come British taxpayers will be paying tens of billions of pounds in debt repayments to Chinese, Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds and other overseas creditors. They will use that money to invest in their own universities, infrastructure and to keep their taxes low. Today's low interest rates won't last forever. Britain's wealth creators and entrepreneurs will be more heavily taxed in order to service today's debts - if they choose to stay here and not take their ideas and talents to more lightly taxed jurisdictions.

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The benefits squeeze will cause real hardship to many families. It's a necessary measure in difficult times but no Tory should see it as a political ploy.

By Tim Montgomerie
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A YouGov poll for The Sunday Times (PDF) suggests that most people (52%) believe that the Government's decision to limit benefits to a 1% annual increase for the next three years is either the correct thing to do or is not tough enough:

• 33% say it was "right that benefits should only be increased at 1% a year";
• A tough-minded 19% say it was wrong, "benefits should not have been increased at all";
• 35% say wrong, "benefits should have been increased in line with inflation or more".

According to James Forsyth George Osborne hopes to use the issue to drive a wedge between the Labour leadership and its heartland supporters. Tory strategists are said to believe that many working people greatly resent paying their taxes to people who live on the same estates as them and do not appear to make the effort to find work or acquire new skills.

Continue reading "The benefits squeeze will cause real hardship to many families. It's a necessary measure in difficult times but no Tory should see it as a political ploy." »

A new 10p tax rate - arguments for and against

By Paul Goodman
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The tax system should be as simple as possible.  George Osborne thinks so too - which is why in opposition he supported "lower and simpler" taxes.  It should also be designed so as to ensure that a lot of people pay a little tax, rather than a few people paying a lot (which is unsustainable).

From this point of view, taking people out of income tax altogether by raising the personal allowance is at worst a bad idea, and at best a good one with limits.  This helps to explain why the party was opposed it at the last election.

Harry Phibbs has been citing some of side-effects of the policy on Twitter this morning. The Chancellor announced yesterday that the personal allowance will rise in April to £9,205, and that two million of the lowest paid have been taken out of tax altogether.

As Harry pointed out, if the 40p income tax band had risen in line with earnings, one wouldn't now pay it until one's earnings had reached over £60,000, rather than just over £37,000.  Mr Osborne made a virtue in his statement yesterday of this "bracket creep".

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Why George Osborne can't afford to bring in higher council tax bands

By Paul Goodman
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The Mail on Sunday claimed yesterday that George Osborne and Nick Clegg are drawing up "secret plans" for new council tax bands on homes worth more than £1 million.

I should add at the start that senior Treasury sources told me yesterday that the story is wrong - though it's all not quite that simple, as we will see.

I want to take readers through the pledges, practicalities and politics affecting any new council tax band changes - ending with a reflection on the position of Mr Osborne himself.

Pledges

• Eric Pickles and David Gauke, on behalf of CLG and the Treasury respectively, have pledged that "the Government will not carry out a council tax revaluation in England during the lifetime of this Parliament".

• The last Conservative manifesto promised to "scrap Labour’s plans for an expensive and intrusive council tax revaluation", and it presumably follows that a Conservative Government would not have introduced a revaluation.

• George Osborne told the Mail on Sunday on October 6 that new council tax bands would be a "tax snoopers charter...‘You would have to send inspectors out and it wouldn’t raise much money. I’m not going to let the tax inspectors get their foot in the door."

Continue reading "Why George Osborne can't afford to bring in higher council tax bands" »