ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Is David Cameron about to bulldoze Tory housing policy?

Ahead of a major speech on housing tomorrow, David Cameron has written for today's Independent on Sunday about a big change in Tory policy on homebuilding:

"We're reviewing the whole planning system to ensure that local people are more directly involved in shaping the future of their communities; there are clear rewards for welcoming new development; beauty is built into new houses; and house-building plays its part in the broader fight against climate change. Our goal is a Britain in which there are more beautiful, affordable, eco-friendly homes. And I passionately believe that everyone should have the right to own their own home, and have the chance to enhance our own environment. I think you'd have to be bananas to object to that."

At the last election the Tories supported brownfield developments but strongly campaigned against Labour's plans for housebuilding programmes in rural and suburban Britain.  Victories in seats like Guildford owed much to such local campaigning.

Team Cameron apparently now believe that relaxed planning laws could play a major role in spurring economic growth.  Remembering Margaret Thatcher's sale of council homes to their tenants, the Cameroonians also believe that the building of more homes for lower income and first time buyers should be a big part of the party's new commitment to social justice.  They are apparently strongly influenced by a 2004 book by Ferdinand Mount - Mind The Gap.  Here's what Polly Toynbee said of the book's recommendation to deregulate planning guidelines:

"Mount accepts that setting people free to build will mean more eyesores and landscape blots, as people are allowed to build in ramshackle ways. But if it would transform the lives of all the dispossessed, giving them a real stake, responsibility and a share in wealth, isn't it worth it? The Campaign to Protect Rural England would say no - but here's a conservative willing to argue against a landscape frozen in time by the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act."

There is nothing in David Cameron's IoS article about the demand for housing.  Much housing demand is powered by family breakdown and increased immigration.  The Sunday Times reports a MigrationWatch report which suggests that "more than 1.5m extra homes will be needed to cope with immigration into Britain" over the next twenty years.

Cameron 'guru' is paid £23,000 every month

The Sunday newspapers have caught up with Iain Dale's blog and told the world that an Australian  hedge fund millionaire is one of the Tory party's previously secret lenders.  The Observer also unmasks Johan Eliasch, a Swedish sports equipment tycoon and Finnish property billionaire Poju Zabludowicz.

A bigger and much less savoury story can be found in The Sunday Times:

"The Tories under David Cameron have accepted £100,000 from the wife of a foreign arms dealer barred from making political donations in Britain.  Wafic Said, a Syrian-born Saudi, and his British wife Rosemary are accused of exploiting a loophole in the rules to fund the Tories, who are under increasing pressure to reveal their financial backers.  According to a senior Conservative source, Said used to give donations to the Tories until he became a tax exile and foreign gifts were banned. His wife now bids at fundraising auctions, which friends say is his way of supporting the party."

The Sunday Times continues: "Over the past two years the Saids are understood to have given at least £550,000 to the Tories at auctions but none of it has been declared publicly."

The sale of arms to Saudi Arabia began in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher with Wafic Said a key middleman: "Said has a colourful public profile. He was the middleman who profited from Britain’s biggest arms deal — “Al-Yamamah” — which involved the multi-billion-pound sale of fighters and warships to Saudi Arabia. The deal was signed by Margaret Thatcher, whose son Mark was said to have received payments for his involvement in the deal in the 1980s."

Mr Cameron was evasive when ConservativeHome asked him about arms sales to repressive regimes during the leadership process and a frontbench defence spokesman welcomed a new arms deal with the Saudis last December.  The record of the Saudi kingdom on human rights, democracy and religious freedom leaves much to be desired.  Arms sales to untrustworthy regimes have always been questionable but must be doubly so in the post 9/11 world.

For many Conservative members the party's sources of revenue arouse less excitement than how the Tories spend their earnings.  Last week's news that Cameron aide Steve Hilton is receiving £23,000pcm caused much anger amongst ConservativeHome visitors.

Today's Sunday Herald has used the Freedom of Information Act to produce a fascinating article on how the Tories spent £18m at the last General Election.   Here are some of the highlights of the article:

• "Ex-Tory leader Howard handed over day-to-day control of last year’s election campaign to controversial Australian Lynton Crosby, whose six-month fee was reported to be £250,000.  But invoices submitted by the pollster’s firm, Crosby Textor, show that the total amount was closer to £450,000, with a fee of up to £60,000 per month."
• "Documents also showed that the Tory campaign focused on policies designed to shore up their core vote. In particular, a large part of the £4.5m spent on “unsolicited material to electors” focused on protecting the UK’s borders."
• "Costs for the campaign slogan “Are you thinking what we are thinking?” came in at £120,000."
• "Documents showed the party footing the bill for up to £20,000 in libel damages for Labour MP Martin Salter, falsely accused of bullying at a Tory press conference in 2004."

These revelations will only encourage those party members who want to see CCHQ behave much more transparently.  The elections to the party board - which has operational responsibility for fundraising and spending - are not even advertised on the party's own website.   ConservativeHome profiled the five candidates on Friday.

Cameron faces the heat on Tory loans

There is speculation that a Sunday newspaper will reveal the names of the businessmen who loaned money to the Tories during 2005.  Up until now the Conservatives have said that they will not break confidentiality undertakings that were made to their lenders.  Lenders to the Tory party apparently fear that, if their identities are revealed, they will be penalised by the Government in any bidding for contracts.

Today's Times reports suggestions that the Jersey-based Morain Investments is being used to hide a £2m loan that was made to the Conservative Party in the last week of Michael Howard's unsuccessful General Election campaign.  The £2m of extra borrowing was used to finance a last minute advertising offensive.

Editor's note: "I'm not sure if the most offensive thing was the wastefulness and nature of the dog-whistle advertising campaign itself or how it was financed."

Labour are desperate to turn the media's fire on to the Tories after enduring a terrible ten days of negative publicity.  Cabinet minister Margaret Beckett wrote to David Cameron yesterday asking him to disclose all of the Tory lenders.

Pundits have not been impressed with David Cameron's handling of the political funding scandal.  "This has been David Cameron’s first major test as leader of the opposition, and his performance has at best been useless," was Peter Oborne's verdict.  Andrew Tyrie's proposal to cut the number of MPs in return for greater state funding of political parties was damned as "more taxation with less representation" by the Daily Mail.   

3pm update: IAIN DALE reveals one of the 'loan Tories'.

Wake up to Gordon Brown (6): Gordon Brown 'The Man'

This sixth part of ConservativeHome's 'Wake up to Gordon Brown' series covers the most explosive subject matter.  There were a number of people who recommended very direct personal attacks on the Chancellor:

"Expose his arrogance and inability to work as a team member."

"Encourage cartoonists to emphasise his porcine eyes and nail-bitten fingers."

"Establish him as Old Man Brown, tired, worn out, out of touch."

David Cameron's "analogue Chancellor in a digital age" jibe could have been inspired by that last quotation and, of course, by ConservativeHome's old-fashioned alarm clock graphic!

David Cameron will want to steer away from two of the richer comments that were made...

"Spread muck and manure on him at regular intervals."

"Smear him, smear him, and smear him again."

I publish them because there were representative of about a dozen similar observations.  If "very senior sources" within Downing Street are capable of telling Andrew Rawnsley that Gordon Brown suffers from "psychological flaws" it is not surprising that a few Tories get excited about the Chancellor.  George Osborne and David Cameron have both been very negative about Mr Brown.  Many, many more voices within the ConservativeHome Panel rightly rejected personality-based negative campaigning, however.  Here are a sample of them: 

Wake up to Gordon Brown (5): The Blair relationship

Gordon Brown's big hope is that he will be seen as a refreshing change from Tony Blair when he moves into Ten Downing Street.  ConservativeHome Members' Panel members were very concerned that that should not be how voters see things.  Members wanted to see the Tory party make Brown share responsibility for all of Tony Blair's failures...

Still not coming to a cinema near you...

A BEAUTIFUL MIND
Psychological drama.  A brilliant mathematician can do amazing things with numbers, such as massively increasing expenditure, hiking taxes and binging on borrowing, and still have a competitive economy and world-class unreformed public services.  Unfortunately, he then presents his Budget and it turns out it was all a schizophrenic delusion.

Starring: Russell Crowe as Gordon Brown; Paul Bettany as his non-existent friend who lives next door.

CH verdict: most members of the audience will realise eventually that they've been conned - and then the story will end very quickly.

Elections to the Conservative Party Board

"The Board is the ultimate decision making body of the Conservative Party. It is responsible for all operational matters including; fundraising, membership and candidates. It is made up of representatives from each section of the Party - the voluntary, political and professional.  It meets once a month and works closely with Conservative Central Office, elected representatives and the voluntary membership. The Board has a number of sub-committees, including membership, candidates and conferences."

That description of the Conservative Party Board appears on conservatives.com but there is nothing on the party's website about elections that are currently taking place to the Party Board.  The Chairman and President's positions on the National Convention are unopposed but the places for three Vice Presidents are contested.  Listed below are thumbnail profiles of the five candidates and, in the middle of the Jeremy Middleton profile, I've drawn attention to the fact that John Flack was an unambiguous clear supporter of last year's campaign to protect members' voting rights in the leadership election.

John Flack: "I  am standing for election as one of the three Vice Presidents of the National Convention because I believe I offer a fresh approach and a fresh voice. I am a Campaigner at heart and want to help our Party Campaign more effectively.  If elected my priorities as a member of the Party’s board will be:

• To help equip all Associations with modern I.T   ….. and the skills to use it.
• To ensure views from all parts of the Country are heard at board level.
• To promote membership & registered supporters.
• To target resources most effectively to win elections
• To ensure our Candidates at all elections have the best support possible

Please also take a moment to look at my website.  If you want to vote for change, if you want to vote for modern ideas with traditional values, if you want to vote to make campaigning a priority please give me one of your three votes."

Jeremy Middleton has not submitted a paragraph but has sent a pdf of his campaign messages.  This highlights his support for abolishing the distinction between central and national members, the delivery of the blue chip replacement and the importance of local candidates.  Jeremy, as a sitting member of the board, also responded directly to my question about membership participation in last year's leadership election (and in future leadership elections):

"I supported the board propsals last year.  However the election process. turned out to be open, positive and exciting. It worked for us then and I therefore think we should stick with our current system. All methods of electing a leader carry risks but  it would now take a lot to convince me to  change it."

We also know that John Flack actively opposed last year's attempt to take the vote away from members and we know that Toby Vincent supported a reversal of the existing process whereby party members would reduce the slate of available leadership candidates to two and then MPs would decide between the two.  This was first proposed by William Hague.  I have not yet received anything from Simon Mort or Emma Pidding on where they stand on members' voting rights in the leadership election.

Simon Mort (the second sitting Board member): "You have asked me for a paragraph on why I should be re-elected...  In a nutshell I have started, so please let me finish.   I was elected by the voluntary party at Harrogate in March 2004.   It was a high which exceeded even success in a parliamentary selection.  I very much hope that I have never forgotten that the Voluntary Party gave me these responsibilities and they are my constituency.  The glorious idiosyncrasies and differences between all parts of the country are reflected in our associations.   These have to inform in party organisational structures, choice of candidate and every other respect of our political lives  .  My slogan for this campaign is Voluntary Party First Among Equals."  Simon Mort's page on conservatives.com.

Emma Pidding: 'These are important elections at a time of change for our Party and it is vital that we have the strongest grass roots representation on the Board. You and I, the voluntary workers - the bedrock of our Party organisation - must ensure that our voices are heard and heeded. I believe that my experience and sound understanding of the voluntary party equip me to communicate our views with force and clarity. My belief is based on the experience I have gained in 20 years of working at most levels within the voluntary organisation.  I am confident that I have the energy and determination to represent you on the Board, and to make our influence count. My objective is clear – not to pursue a Parliamentary career but to contribute with optimal effect at voluntary level.  For more details on what I will work to achieve if elected, please take a look at my attached campaign message.'

Toby Vintcent - "founder of Geneva" (the CCHQ call centre) - submitted his campaign CV and a pdf of endorsements.  One endorsement came from Rt Hon Michael Ancram MP: “I am happy to support Toby as I have long admired his contribution to the work of the Party.  He has a natural feel for politics and great organisational skills and he would bring valuable campaigning experience to the Board at this crucial time.”  Charles Tannock MEP said: "I have known Toby Vintcent for eight years when he skilfully chaired the London Region during my successful campaign for the European Parliament in 1999.  He is charming, eloquent and of great integrity and has the required modern vision for our Conservative Party.  I believe he will bring great value-added to the Conservative Party Board.”

Ballot papers for this election were mailed out in the last few days.  About 900 local association chairmen plus regional and area officers are entitled to vote. You must contact them as soon as possible if you want your voice to be heard in this election.

Cameron and Thatcherism

In last month's Prospect Magazine Robin Harris explained why he was unimpressed with David Cameron:

"It was predictable, of course, that Cameron should use his first public speech as leader to distance himself from Margaret Thatcher. New Tory leaders generally do — and then ask for her help in fundraising. But Cameron has gone further than that. He has systematically repositioned the party to the left..."

Cameroonian policies on tax, grammar schools, public service reform and redistribution all concerned Mr Harris, a key aide to Mrs T when she was in Downing Street.  Nicholas Boles - of Policy Exchange and a key ally of David Cameron - has responded this month.  (Unlike for Mr Harris' article you need a Prospect subscription to access Nicholas Boles' piece.)

Wake up to Gordon Brown (4): Waste

Here are four of the comments made by Panel members about Gordon Brown's record of wastefulness...

"Plug away at his failure to produce results for all the money spent on health and education."

"Attack his record on the economy and the huge increases made under this government in the number of civil servants/ bureaucrats/ hospital 'managers' the vast majority of which do more harm than good. Also the ridiculous amount of paperwork many of the public services have been budened with over the past 9 years must also be countered."

"Don't fight on the amount that's spent, but on how that amount is spent. The large and Brown-created body of public servants will be less antagonised by this but then how likely are they to vote conservative anyway, while most people are fed up to their back teeth with dirty hospital wards but brand, spanking new hospital offices for administrators."

"Highlight all reports of extra spending not leading to better results eg truancy, teenage pregnancy."

Most Conservatives agree that Gordon Brown is wasteful but there are many types of waste.  Here are a few I thought of...

• Spending recklessly/ extravagantly - The trees in Portcullis House of Parliament spring to mind.  They cost hundreds of pounds and were they a good use of money?
• Spending on white elephants - The Millenium Dome has to be the best example of a very expensive and useless project.
• Spending without reform - Billions have been put into the nation's schools and hospitals but the money has not been used to lubricate difficult reforms like more flexible pay arrangements and real parent/ patient choice.
• Spending on ineffective things - The New Deal's record at getting people into sustained employment is much inferior and more expensive than voluntary sector groups like Tomorrow's People.
• Spending on the wrong things - Windfarms spring to mind.  It's a very expensive form of renewable energy.  Wouldn't the money have been better spent on energy conservation or even, dareIsay it, nuclear power?
• Spending on bureaucracy - Regional Assemblies.  An explosion of special advisers...

For more see Lee Rotherham's Platform piece.  Lee is author of The Bumper Book of Government Waste.

Property news

We already knew that a debt-laden Labour Party was having to sell property to meet its financial commitments... Today's Telegraph Spy (not online but see right) suggests that the debt-laden Tories are also juggling the party's property portfolio to deal with the party's own financial difficulties.

David Cameron is still having to cope with the financial hangover from last year's General Election and although membership has risen since he became leader there has not been a spectacular inflow of big money.  The current loans-for-peerages row is not going to make it more likely that big donors will open up their cheque books.

The party's current enthusiasm for additional state funding undoubtedly reflects this.  Accessing more money from the taxpayer seems an awful lot easier than building the sort of internet coalitions that could transform the funding of Britain's political parties - and, at the same time, force them to reconnect with the concerns of ordinary voters.

Brown still does something to the right-wing press...

The Sun has got excited about the Chancellor of the Sex-chequer's "cut-price condoms" and "cheap champagne"...  A second 'right-wing' newspaper - The Daily Mail - also has a frontpage to delight Labour's next leader...

It's certainly true that The Sun is warm about David Cameron's response to the Budget speech (as are most newspapers) and within The Daily Mail there is plenty of critical commentary about Mr Brown's Tenth Budget...

• Stephen Pollard writes that 'Money alone is not the answer'...
• Senior economist Michael Taylor wrotes about 'A tax burden that's paralysing Britain'...
• and Alex Brummer, Mail City Editor, notes that 'His problems are mounting'...

...but overall there's still a lot of residual warmth to the 'Iron Chancellor' who is desperate to move into Ten Downing Street.  There is, of course, a bit of Blair-bashing within the Brown-boosting but there is deeper affection/ respect for Brown in the two newspapers' high-ups.  The Chancellor is known to have a good relationship with Mail Editor Paul Dacre.  Rupert Murdoch is also known to be positive towards Brown. 

Today's newspapers are a reminder that two newspapers that Margaret Thatcher was able to take for granted are not going to be easy cheerleaders for David Cameron in his forthcoming battles with Brown.

MORE BUDGET LINKS CAN BE FOUND ON THE FRONTPAGE.

CCHQ: Seven things not mentioned in the Budget

This just in from CCHQ (illustrated with two graphics chosen by the Labour Party):

"1.      The £200 payment made to pensioners before the election to help with council tax bills has been abolished. It was the centre-piece of his Budget last year and not mentioned in his Budget this year (page 188).

2        Gordon Brown did not mention the fact that this Budget adds £5.5bn to Britain’s tax bill – already the highest ever – over three years. Of this £5.5bn, £4.8bn was not even contained in the Budget measures announced today. Tax as a proportion of GDP has been revised up from 40.7% to 41% by 2010/11.

3        Even after that, Brown has revised up his borrowing to £175 billion over the next six years – £7,000 per family. The current deficit for next year almost doubled from £4bn to £7bn.

4        Brown made much of environmental taxation but the proportion of taxes raised by environmental taxes has fallen from 6.4% to 6.2% (page 262). The Climate Change Levy will, according to the Red Book, raise less revenue in the next three years after the changes he announced. Friends of the Earth responded by saying: “Gordon Brown’s latest Budget will do little to tackle the huge challenges posed by climate change”.

5        There was no mention of the NHS at all. For years the Chancellor made the NHS his priority. Now it is in financial crisis he simply ignores its existence.

6        There were no measures to implement the Turner Report or to restore incentives to save.

7        The Treasury have revised down long-term productivity growth from 2% to 1.75%."

This was the signature at the bottom of the email I received from New Labour HQ about the Budget (that also included the childish pictures...).  Any handwriting analysts out there?

David Cameron's Budget response...

• This was neither a Budget nor a leadership pitch...
• No mention of the NHS...
• Brown is the roadblock to reform...
• Glad to see Tory ideas on things like volunteering being pinched by the Chancellor...
• This was not a green budget...
• The Chancellor hasn't made a serious speech on the environment in 11 years...
• In a carbon-conscious world we have a fossil fuel Chancellor - taxing energy, not carbon...
• Britain is growing slower than all of the English-speaking world...
• We'll examine the detail of this speech because the Budget speech is always different from the small print...
• Savings ratio has halved since 1997...
• Tax burden is higher than at any time in Britain's history... higher than when Dennis Healey made the pips squeak...
• £6,000 of debt for every household in Britain means that this old-fashioned tax-and-spend Chancellor is mortgaging the future...
• He's done nothing about transport... some of our motorways look like car parks...
• He's doubled spending on NHS but debt in the hospitals is £1bn...
• He's doubled education spending but half of all children leave school without having achieved proper standards...
• Billions spent, billions wasted, no return... with a record like that he should be Treasurer of the Labour Party...
• His means-testing has destroyed pensions provision...
• Gordon Brown is the roadblock stopping Britain from meeting the challenges of the future...
• Brown is the analogue Chancellor in the digital age...
• "He is the past."

Live budget blog

12:32 The Chancellor rises. Gordon Brown and David Cameron are wearing the same shirt and tie combination. Using the same focus group?

12:34 As predicted by the TaxPayers' Alliance last week, Gordon Brown is using his Budget speech to stress the existing and emerging challenges international competition - but as also predicted, he is stressing competition in terms of education and research and development without any reference to the burdens on business imposed by tax...

12:37 Brown concedes independent basis for Office for National Statistics - bows to question marks over reliability of his numbers?

12:40 Brown has stuck to his guns re. Treasury forecasts of the rate of economic growth Britain can expect in the coming years - but only after downgrading the forecasts by half three months ago ... With British taxes under Brown rising to rates higher even than Germany's and the UK's economic competitiveness declining consequently it is to be entirely expected that the economy is responding negatively.

12:43 Brown claims Golden rule will be met - but this is a rewritten Golden rule.

12:45 Brown claims the Conservative Party's growth rule would require £17 billion in spending cuts.

12:47 Government borrowing is at least for now to remain at its current high levels - with taxpayers having to pay back this borrowing plus interest for years to come. On the Today programme this morning George Osborne predicted it will have to rise to £10 billion.

12:48 John Prescott seems to be having trouble staying awake.

12:50 Business productivity - perhaps the chief embarrassment of Brown's economic stewardship - is skated over very swiftly ... but public sector productivity goes unmentioned  ... This is unsurprising - not only have Brown's major increases in taxes and spending failed to boost public sector productivity, but the evidence is mounting - see above all Graham Leach's brilliant report for Reform - that under Brown the relationship between spending and productivity in the state sector has been negative with public services under Labour proving less and less efficient the more tax money is spent on them.

12:51 Interesting to hear Brown also talking about links with foreign universities, as the TPA predicted. Good spin from Brown...

12:53 The Tory attacks on Brown as the 'roadblock to reform' have obviously hit home: Brown is now calling for serious reform of emergy markets at EU level.

12:54 Brown promises to double R&D tax credits: why not just cut corporate taxes?

12:56 The Chancellor pledges to revamp export quango UKTI. This is the second relaunch for this quango since 1997.

12:59 Brown is playing up his record on the environment. Despite green taxes falling under his chancellorship up until now.

13:04 As widely expected Gordon Brown has announced special higher taxes on 4X4s (what Ken Livingstone called Chelsea tractors). ... This may prove a sound political strategy by the Chancellor - forcing Cameron's Conservatives to choose between the party's traditional low tax message and its new green image. But the And Theory of Conservatism offers the way out of this trap - by stressing newer ideas for conservatives such as environmental protection while also standing by traditional conservative messages on taxes, the false choice between retaining the party's old message and traditional support base and reaching out to new supporters with new issues could be refuted.

... Irwin Stelzer suggested on the Today programme this morning one variation of the And Theory of Conservatism combining environmental protection with support for a competitive, low tax economy via his proposal that 'green taxes' are acceptable if they are combined with lower taxes on business.

13:08 Brown's answer to the difficulties ordinary families face always seems to be more complicated tax credits. What people really want is lower taxes...

13:11 Taxes on cigarettes are to increase once again - in spite of the obvious effects: go into any pub in a less affluent area of the country and the cigarettes being smoked will be covered with foreign warnings - taxpayers' penalties are smugglers' reward in this area.

13:13 Prescott now asleep.

13:17 Brown admits he could cut taxes, but prefers to expand expenditure.

13:19 New sports quango announced - the Bumper Book of Government Waste calculated the annual cost of existing quangos to be more than £22 billion.

13:21 New quango announced to tell charities how to work.

13:23 Brown repeats his reliance on the discredited Gerschon Review - no one believes the numbers are real. There will be no real cuts in head count or waste in the public sector.

13:25 We are obviously going to be far more competitive with India and China because more people have done discredited GCSEs and A Levels. They must be quaking in their boots!!

13:27 Typical Brown response: wants to throw more money at the problem - the explanation for our failing education system is the fact that all schools are controlled by politicians - they need to be given complete freedom.

13:29 Prescott has woken up again.

13:30 Brown promises new OAP off-peak bus pass: trying to take them for a ride?

13:32 The Chancellor sits down.

PMQs: Stephen Crabb steals the show

A quick PMQs post this week because of the live blogging on The Budget...

David Cameron kicked off with two very Punch & Judy questions on whether Gordon Brown's tenth Budget would be his last?  The PM non-answered by saying that whatever happened David Cameron would be staying on the Opposition benches.  David Cameron's second set of questions focused on crime.  It was good to see the Tory leader offering some balance by raising a 'core vote issue'.  Over recent PMQs he has focused again and again on breadth issues like the environment, international development and education.  It's good to maintain some 'politics of and' balance.  The Tory leader only used four of his six questions.

Perhaps embarassed by CCHQ's own reluctance/ inability to reveal the source of Tory loans the Conservative leader steered clear of the issue of the week - loans for peerages.  It was left to Menzies Campbell to raise the issue.  Tony Blair pointed out that the LibDems had had their
own funding issues.

Question of the day came from Tory MP Stephen Crabb.  Why, he asked the PM, had Alan B'Stard defected from the Tories to Labour?  Another Welsh Tory MP - David Davies - followed up on David Cameron's crime theme and asked about Labour's discredited early release programme.

Setting the scene for our live blogging of the Budget

In half an hour, the TaxPayers' Alliance will be liveblogging the 2006 Annual Budget.

As a foretaste of what we expect and what to look out for: This may well turn out to be Gordon Brown's last Budget, but it will be his first chance to go head to head against David Cameron. We expect he will use this opportunity to define the choice and debate between them in the way most advantageous to himself.

In the last nine years political gamblers have enjoyed placing bets on the number of times the Chancellor will use such key Brown terms as 'prudence' and 'stability'. We think that in this Budget we are more likely to hear words such as 'challenge' and 'record', as Brown uses his own record and the economic challenges ahead as the basis for his case for being the next Prime Minister.

Further background reading:
TaxPayers' Alliance Budget 2006
Reform Eve of the Budget Bulletin

The whole British army will be able to fit in the new Wembley stadium

Yesterday I wrote about Tony Blair's fine speech on the war on terror.  There are many reasons why Tony Blair has failed to turn fine words into credible actions.  But a leading reason is the way his government - and Chancellor Gordon Brown - have starved our armed forces of resources.  This point was well made by Liam Fox in a speech last night.  The Shadow Defence Secretary said:

"This year we will spend only 2.2% of our GDP on defence.  This is the smallest proportion of our national wealth that we have spent on defending our country since 1930.  By the time we finish the new Wembley Stadium, we will be able to seat the ranks of the whole of the British army inside it.  The Royal Navy will be smaller than the French navy. And the RAF Museum at Hendon will have more attack aircraft than the RAF does now...

The Army down 9,000.  The Royal Navy down 10,000.  The RAF down 16,000...

The lack of general debate about defence and security policy – rather than domestic affairs – is doubly strange given the varied locations in which British troops are currently serving.  Afghanistan and Iraq are the two most notable deployments, but British forces can still be found in the south Atlantic, the Balkans and West Africa.  Our global commitment amounts to some 15,000 troops – not including those permanently stationed in places like Cyprus and Germany.  Their task, wherever they serve, is not an easy one and as a nation, we are rightly proud of them.    Yet our armed forces have equally never been under such a strain.  They have never been asked to do so much with so little of the national wealth at their disposal.   Therefore there is an urgent debate for this country to have.  Do we reduce our commitments to match the size of our defence budget or do we increase our defence budget to match our commitments?"

Read a pdf of Liam Fox's speech here.

Wake up to Gordon Brown (3): Social justice

Today is Budget day and on the ConservativeHome frontpage there are links to...

• a Populus poll on attitudes to Gordon Brown...
• an excellent essay on Gordon Brown by The Telegraph's Jeff Randall and...
• some insights into Labour's not-so-green record on environmental taxation.

It's day three of ConservativeHome's 'Wake up to Gordon Brown week' and today's focus is on social justice.  It was encouraging to read so many ConservativeHome Panel members volunteering social justice issues as key weaknesses of the Chancellor's record.  Here are some of your comments:

"Gordon Brown's strategy has been to co-opt ever-greater parts of the population into the New Labour tent by increasing the number of people dependent on the state for employment, welfare benefits and/or tax credits."

"A sustained assault must be made on Gordon Brown's decision to over tax the low paid and families on middle incomes. The Conservative Party, as part of its modernisation agenda, must be prepared to raise personal tax thresholds and remove the low paid from paying tax. Just as the Conservative Party granted council house owners the right to buy their homes the Conservative Party needs to show that it is prepared to set people free by lowering taxes. The Conservative Party should rightly be championing the cause for social justice. However, it cannot win this argument by copying the Blair-Brown stastist agenda."

"Anyone capable of creating the family tax credit fiasco is a danger to the well-being country."

"Develop an alternative moral strategy emphasising self reliance as the goal of all citizens but making it clear that the state would still help those in need - but that the final goal would be (as far as possible) them becoming self reliant individuals. Show how GB's well intentioned interventions do not help those they are designed to and that he interferes unecessarily (and disasterously - creating dependence) with the lives of those who are already able to fend for themselves rather than concentrating on those in need."

"We should spearhead our strategy against Gordon Brown with a radical, yet authentically Conservative agenda to fight poverty and social deprivation. This would contrast hugely with Brown's failed top-down methods, the effects of which can be seen no more clearly than in his home country."

"Under the bad old days of bad old Labour the marginal rate of taxation on the highest earners was 83%. For some of the poor under bad old new Labour, the effective marginal rate of taxation can be between 90% - 95%. This is because the effect of benefit withdrawal is to leave some people scarcely any better off when taking action to improve their own lot. This is disastrous for them and for everyone else. This fact must be made known to everyone in the country as a condemnation of Gordon Brown's policies. Yet I haven't heard Osborne or Cameron really spell it out at all."

In summary, here are some of the weaknesses of Gordon Brown's anti-poverty record:

• Inequality is up in Brown's Britain and social mobility is down.
• His choices of stealthy taxation - not least the massive rises in council tax - often penalise the poor most of all.
• The spread of means-tested benefits has not only undermined pensions savings it has created whole new classes of dependency.  Gordon Brown's complex system of benefits has created very high marginal rates of tax for low income workers that act as enormous disincentives to work more hours, overtime or take on a promotion.
• Tens of thousands of the poorest pensioners are too proud or too confused to access the complex system of means-tested pensions benefits that Gordon Brown has introduced.  The administration costs of many individual pension benefits exceeds the benefit itself.
• He abolished the married couples' allowance and a range of his other benefits and credits disadvantage marrying.  Given the role of strong families in fighting poverty and holding communities together this is the dark heart of his anti-poverty strategy.
• We know that he isn't meeting his child poverty targets but the progress he has made is usually based on distorting targets.  Most progress has been made on the 'easy cases' - he has lifted those children just below the poverty line to those just above it.  The hardest cases - the poorest of the poor - have not been helped.  This is how David Cameron described Gordon Brown's record on the deepest of poverties in his own Scottish backyard (during a speech to the Centre for Social Justice):

"Since 1997, Gordon Brown has directed Labour's efforts to deliver social justice.  He is absolutely sincere in his commitment to tackling poverty at home and abroad.  But Mr Brown's good intentions should not shield his government from serious scrutiny.  And although some progress has been made, Brown has failed Britain's most vulnerable people and communities.  This can be seen most starkly in his native Scotland.

Scotland still has the same tax and benefits system as the rest of the UK.  In recent decades, health, education and other public services have also been more generously funded north of the border than in the rest of Britain.  Therefore, if Labour's anti-poverty strategy is working anywhere, it should be working in Scotland.  Earlier this month, however, The Scotsman published research which lays bare Labour's failure.  The hundred most deprived postcode areas were dubbed 'Third Scotland' because of their Third World level of life outcomes.  If this sounds exaggerated, look at life expectancy.

In Third Scotland, average male life expectancy is only 64 years - lower than in Bosnia, the Gaza Strip, Iran or even North Korea.  Shockingly, this trend is actually getting worse.  Worklessness is also endemic in Third Scotland.  In Calton, in the east-end of Glasgow, 57% of adults do not work at all, even though only 8% are classed as unemployed.  Here, two out of every five adults claim incapacity benefit.  In Hamiltonhill, 61 per cent of children live in workless households.  And this is true for 58 per cent in Drumchapel. 

Throughout Britain, 2.7 million are claiming incapacity benefit which offers guaranteed payouts for life.  Together with the associated benefits, this can pay more than an uncertain life of work on the minimum wage.  For others, the skull-splitting complexity of the tax credit system and the proliferation of means testing has debased the very principle of work.  Gordon Brown has created a benefits system that gives millions of people little incentive to work.  Any effort to progress beyond dependency is punished by steep rates of benefit withdrawal.  And there's the claw-back of excess payments that leads to ever higher debt.

Only this week in my constituency surgery, a working single mum told me that she would have a higher income and a better house if she gave up her job.  She'd done the maths.  She'd be better off on benefits.  But she chose to stay working.  It was a small victory of the human spirit against the vast scale of Gordon Brown's state machine.

Frank Field has observed that:

"There is now no way by which those most dependent on tax credit will be able by their own efforts to free themselves from this welfare dependency… To rip out the mainspring of a free society - the drive to improve one's own lot and that of one's family… cannot but harbinger ill for our country."

The current welfare system, designed to eradicate the poverty of the last century, is now fuelling the new poverty of the 21st century.  Labour is creating a new class of decommissioned people.  Individuals who should have been guided on to paths out of poverty have instead been shunted into life's sidings."

PREVIOUS ENTRY IN THIS SERIES: GORDON BROWN'S RECORD ON TAX.

Scotland Yard gets involved in loan scandal

The Police are investigating the Labour party due to three complaints. As the BBC reports (hidden under a seperate headline):

"The investigation will focus on alleged breaches of the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925, to see whether honours were given by Labour in return for loans or donations. A spokeswoman confirmed that three complaints had been received against the party, including one from Scottish National MP Angus McNeil. Another was made by Elfyn Llwyd, parliamentary leader of Plaid Cymru."

As Guido reported earlier, Angus McNeil had written a letter to Sir Ian Blair last week:

"The body of evidence in the Sunday Times dossier is incredibly damning. With 80 pence in every £1 going donated to the Labour party by individuals comes from people who have been honoured. Every donor who has given the party more than £1 million has been given a knighthood or a peerage."

The very fact that the police have reason to investigate is what will stick in the mind of voters. Before their election, the Canadian Liberal party was rocked by scandals thanks to the conservative netroots. The big one was the Income Trust Scandal, which broke online, in which the Mounties investigated and despite finding "no evidence of wrongdoing or illegal activity", irreparable damage was done to voter's perceptions.

Deputy Editor

Blair is still right on Iraq

Everyone is turning against Tony Blair at the moment.  It's not just the usual suspects at the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and the Guantanamo-obsessed Today programme.  It's not just Clare Short and Gordon Brown.  The Guardian, The Economist and Jack Dromey have now got the knives out for Labour's longest-serving leader.

At the root of Tony Blair's troubles isn't, of course, the loans-for-peerages scandal although it hasn't helped.  It's not the debt crisis in the NHS or the missed child poverty targets.  At the root of his troubles is the war in Iraq - which began three years ago yesterday.

Given all of this - and the fact that 54% of ConservativeHome Panel Members think the war on Iraq was a mistake - I hesitate to post this entry but I've just read the best speech I've come across in some time... and it was given by our Prime Minister.

The handling of the liberation of Iraq has, of course, left much to be desired but I still believe that it was the right thing to do.  In thinking that I part company with many Conservatives I otherwise respect but I'm happy to be in the company of many humanitarian leftists who know that the troubles and insecurities of the world are also our own in the post 9/11 world.

Here are two extracts from the PM's speech (which is really worth reading in full):

"This is not a clash between civilisations.  It is a clash about civilisation.  It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace and see opportunity in the modern world and those who reject its existence; between optimism and hope on the one hand; and pessimism and fear on the other.  And in the era of globalisation where nations depend on each other and where our security is held in common or not at all, the outcome of this clash between extremism and progress is utterly determinative of our future here in Britain.  We can no more opt out of this struggle than we can opt out of the climate changing around us.  Inaction, pushing the responsibility on to America, deluding ourselves that this terrorism is an isolated series of individual incidents rather than a global movement and would go away if only we were more sensitive to its pretensions; this too is a policy.  It is just that; it is a policy that is profoundly, fundamentally wrong..."

"Reactionary elements know the importance of victory or defeat in Iraq.  Right from the beginning, to them it was obvious.  For sure, errors were made on our side.  It is arguable that de-Baathification went too quickly and was spread too indiscriminately, especially amongst the armed forces.  Though in parenthesis, the real worry, back in 2003 was a humanitarian crisis, which we avoided; and the pressure was all to de-Baathify faster.  But the basic problem from the murder of the United Nations staff in August 2003 onwards was simple: security.  The reactionary elements were trying to de-rail both reconstruction and democracy by violence.  Power and electricity became problems not through the indolence of either Iraqis or the MNF but through sabotage.  People became frightened through terrorism and through criminal gangs, some deliberately released by Saddam. These were not random acts.  They were and are a strategy.  When that strategy failed to push the MNF out of Iraq prematurely and failed to stop the voting; they turned to sectarian killing and outrage most notably February's savage and blasphemous destruction of the Shia Shrine at Samarra.  They know that if they can succeed either in Iraq or Afghanistan or indeed in Lebanon or anywhere else wanting to go the democratic route, then the choice of a modern democratic future for the Arab or Muslim world is dealt a potentially mortal blow.  Likewise if they fail, and those countries become democracies and make progress and, in the case of Iraq, prosper rapidly as it would; then not merely is that a blow against their whole value system; but it is the most effective message possible against their wretched propaganda about America, the West, the rest of the world.  That to me is the painful irony of what is happening.  They have so much clearer a sense of what is at stake.  They play our own media with a shrewdness that would be the envy of many a political party.  Every act of carnage adds to the death toll.  But somehow it serves to indicate our responsibility for disorder, rather than the act of wickedness that causes it.  For us, so much of our opinion believes that what was done in Iraq in 2003 was so wrong, that it is reluctant to accept what is plainly right now."

Tony Blair is at his best when he is strategic.  His strategic political insights devastated Toryism for more than a decade.  His strategic understanding that 9/11 changed the world was also spot-on.  Tony Blair cannot, of course, manage anything.  He can't manage Britain's NHS or even relations with his Downing Street neighbour.  Katrina revealed the weaknesses of George W Bush's own management skills.  Bush and Blair have made winning the war in Iraq very difficult but they know that we could not wait for more 9/11s to happen.  Tomorrow's threats - because they are potentially so devastating in scale - have to pre-empted.  That is what is happening - bloodily and sometimes ineptly - in Iraq today and everyday.  Another left-winger - Christopher Hitchens uses a column in today's WSJ - 'Iraq is no "distraction" from al Qaeda' - to remind us of the absolute need for the forces of democracy and moderate Islam to prevail in Iraq.

Whether we supported or opposed the invasion of Iraq we cannot retreat now.  The Conservative Party leadership has a duty to help the public understand that, too.

Chris Tame, founder of the Libertarian Alliance, has died

Sean Gabb, Director of the Libertarian Alliance, has distributed this email message this morning:

"It is with the deepest regret that I must announce the death of Dr Chris R. Tame, Founder and President of the Libertarian Alliance.

Chris founded the Libertarian Alliance in the early 1970s. During the next 30 years, he worked tirelessly to recover the British libertarian tradition as a seamless heritage of freedom. He took issue with those Conservatives who saw freedom in terms purely of pounds and pence - and often not even as that. He took issue also with those who demanded freedom in all matters but those involving the getting and spending of money. He believed that freedom should be defined in the traditional English sense, as the rights to life, liberty and justly acquired property.

Wake up to Gordon Brown (2): Tax

"What is the difference between Gordon Brown and Robert Maxwell? Maxwell at least intended to give the stolen pension money back."

That comment was made by one of the Members of the ConservativeHome Panel.  I think it was Peter Lilley who awarded Gordon Brown with the 'Robert Maxwell Memorial Prize' for his £5bn a year raid on Britain's private pensions.  "Pensions" was the word that recurred more than any other in the responses from the Panel: "Browns biggest mistake has been on Pensions - a point we must highlight again and again."

The Chancellor's tax on pensions provision is only one of 66 extra tax rises imposed by Britain's Red Chancellor.  This pdf shows how UK tax levels are rising faster than our competitors and the overall tax levels are exceeding those of Germany.  Gordon Brown is steadily undoing the supply-side benefits of the Thatcher years.   There is also the problem of an increasingly complex system.  According to the World Economic Forum the UK is 67th in the world for tax simplicity.  We share that dubious honour with the African nation of Benin!

After pensions, council tax rises produced the most anger: "Council tax is the biggest single financial issue giving concerns to residents. It is over 10% of my pension income."  Another Panellist said: "We pay more & more tax for less & less benefit - 2006/2007 council tax bills will be the next demonstration of this."

The regressive impact of Brown's stealthy taxes also angered Panel members.  One member urged Tory strategists to "target the issue of the poor paying a higher proportion of their income in tax than the rich and show how the Tories would correct this imbalance - it could show tax cutting but as a means to benefit the poor not the rich."  The 'Wake up to Gordon Brown' series will look at Gordon Brown's social justice record tomorrow.

Inheritance tax was another bugbear of Panellists: "Inheritance Tax Inheritance Tax....come on get a grip.... these are are easy votes... lets us have wealth cascading down the generations..... or is that no longer Tory policy."

I finish this entry with two practical recommendations from Panel members - they are well worth CCHQ adopting:

"An on-line tax calculator where people fill in their details and we calculate just how much their taxes have risen since 1997. Then ask them to rate various services and how they have changed since 97 - much better/ a little better/ no real change/ a little worse much worse. The website would then reveal how much more had been spent on that service and provide some choice details. eg You believe the NHS is about the same standard as it was in 1997. Under Labour spending of your tax money on the NHS has increased by 67%. For the first time ever, the number of administrators now exceeds the number of hospital beds. The number of operations cancelled has increased by...."

"No-one truly comprehends what billions look like, but they understand that they could have had another holiday or a new computer for their children etc. It really has to be explained to people in basic pounds, shillings and pence(!) how much poorer they are today as individual pensioners because of Gordon's raid on pension funds and how much a person in their 50's today will be disadvantaged in 10/15 years time."

PREVIOUS ENTRY IN THIS SERIES: GORDON BROWN'S RECORD ON ECONOMIC COMPETITIVENESS.

What will be in Brown's 2006 budget?

The mud of corruption seems to be sticking to Blair, and half of the country want him to go within a year - Gordon Brown's tenth budget (inc. 1997) on Wednesday is looking even more likely to be his last.

The Financial Times thinks:

"Gordon Brown will launch a concerted attempt to boost London’s standing as a global financial centre, conceding the government must do more to promote one of the pillars of the British economy. Mr Brown’s focus on the City will be at the heart of the Budget’s broader theme to market the strength of the British economy internationally."

Could Inheritance Tax (IHT) reform be on the cards? It could be a very popular move - last night a BBC News poll showed that a majority of the population would like to see it scrapped, even if it meant paying higher Income Tax.

John Whiting of PriceWaterhouseCoopers reckons on a continuation of fiscal drag, a boost to Child Trust Funds, promotion of 'green' cars, and a repeat of council tax relief for pensioners.

Whatever the content of his speech, Rachel Sylvester thinks it will be uncomfortable for the muddy one:

"Mr Blair will need more than a bowl of Lady Levy's chicken soup (the medicine he sends for when he has a bout of the flu) to perk him up. And to make matters worse, tomorrow he will have to sit through Gordon Brown's Master of the Universe performance on Budget Day. Mr Blair is, I gather, personally convinced that the Chancellor's finger was on the button that launched Jack Dromey's missile last week."

Whether that last bit is true or not, it will be very interesting to see how this budget plays with Labour's internal politics.

Deputy Editor

Tory proposals to 'clean up politics' are launched

David Cameron has now announced Conservative proposals to 'clean up politics'.  The proposals are the product of a three month study by Andrew Tyrie MP.  Full details can be found in a pdf on conservatives.com but the main recommendations are listed below (with Editor's comments):

• An upper limit "on donations from individuals, trade unions, corporations and institutions" of £50,000.  "This," the party says, "will end parties' reliance on a small number of large donations and address concerns about donations buying honours or influencing policy".  It is a tighter restriction than the £100,000 suggested by ConservativeHome but a speedy vindication of our campaign.  It also offers great opportunities for the 'conservative movement'.  The big donors who have sunk all their treasure into CCHQ can soon invest it in The Taxpayers' Alliance, think tanks and, er, um, ConservativeHome!
• Tax relief on donations of up to £3,000.  This is to be welcomed.  Giving to a political party is a public-spirited thing to do and should be honoured in the same way that charitable giving is encouraged.
• "A ban on all forms of loans to parties, except from financial institutions on fully commercial terms, should be imposed."  Labour - rightly - seems poised to legislate for this immediately.
• There would be additional state funding in the Tory proposals but this would be paid for by reductions in other costs of politics: "a reduction in the number of special advisers, the abolition of Regional Assemblies, and consideration to a reduction in the number of MPs."  This seems a reasonable deal for the taxpayer.
• Additional state funding based on the number of votes a party received at the previous General Election.  The Tories propose a one-off £1.20 for each vote received at a General Election plus 60p per vote every year.  This is the least attractive recommendation.  The parliamentary allowance given to MPs already provides a significant advantage to incumbent politicians.  The advantage to incumbency will only be increased by a financial awards scheme that reflect the choices of yesteryear's voters.  "Additional state funding" should be proportionate to a political party's current ability to fundraise.
• A reduction in permitted General Election expenditure from £20m to £15m.  This seems a reasonable proposal.  Much of current expenditure is wasted on billboard advertising (and not very good billboard advertising at that).  I know plenty of Tory candidates fighting LibDems who hated anti-Labour billboards appearing on their turf.  Coalition-building and narrowcast campaigning is the way of the future (but none of this is cheap).
• A final proposal: "A statutory Honours Commission, accountable to both Houses of Parliament, to replace the House of Lords Appointments Commission and to assume from ministers the task of making recommendations to The Queen for all honours.”  Fair enough.

The Tory Party is clear that these recommendations intend to break the union-Labour link:

"[The proposals] offer Tony Blair and Gordon Brown the opportunity once and for all to end the Labour Party’s reliance on trade union funding – and with it the suspicion that the unions act as a brake on vital public service improvement plans."

For that reason it is difficult to see Labour accepting them.

Breaking News: Smiths is safe for the BabyCams

David Cameron famously complained about the way that customers with young children were encouraged to buy chocolate oranges at branches of WH Smith.   There is good news to report from the high street this morning.  At the Salisbury branch of Smiths there were no chocolate oranges in sight.  In their place were very child-friendly DVD copies of Wind in the Willows.  Unfortunately the free DVD was only available to customers who bought a copy of the Daily Mail.  I can't imagine many modernisers liking that.