ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

ConservativeHome joins the green revolution

This is me on my new bike earlier this afternoon (photo taken by Mr Iain Dale).  I've moved into an office on London's Doughty Street and a bike is the fastest and cheapest way of getting to and from Westminster.  Note the panniers!

'Blue-green taxation' set to pay for cuts in business taxation

Scanned from a recent copy of the Daily Mail, George Osborne and David Cameron cycle along The Embankment to work.  More people may soon be biking to work if the Shadow Chancellor has his way...

ConservativeHome predicted it at the beginning of April and a commitment to raise green taxation and reduce other forms of taxation looks set to be formally confirmed by George Osborne during a speech in Tokyo today.  Speaking to today's Financial Times (subscription required), the Shadow Chancellor says:

“Instead of a tax system that penalises hard work and enterprise, I want to move towards more effective and fair taxes on pollution... I want the proportion of tax revenue raised by green taxes to rise.”

He notes that the contribution of 'green taxes' to Britain's total tax take has fallen from 7.7% in 1997 to 6.2% today.  It is unclear what green taxes Mr Osborne has in mind although his FT interview points towards greater taxation of transport:

“Since more than a quarter of our emissions come from transport, without action on transport, action on emissions is limited... Railways are the most environmentally efficient means of transport – except for the bicycle. And, I hardly need tell you, trains are 20 times more carbon efficient than aeroplanes.”

If Mr Osborne is looking for ideas on green taxation the FT lists some possibilities and he already has two public sources of ideas:

1. The LibDems' suggestion of a 'take-off' tax that could add £35 to the cost of every airline ticket and a near 1000% increase in vehicle excise duty for 'gaz-guzzling' cars.
2. Steve Norris, head of the Tories' transport working group, is recommending extra green taxes worth "tens of billions of pounds".  Mr Norris notes that from 1975 to 2004 there was a 11% real terms drop in motoring costs but a 66% to 70% rise in bus and train fares.  He thinks that needs to be reversed and is particularly concerned about airline taxation:

"You do have to avoid creating a culture based on cheap aviation which will be as pernicious as the way of life based on car ownership has been in terms of urban planning. We've now got a generation living in France, working three days a week here, [which] thinks nothing of going to Prague for a stag night."

Embracing green taxation will allow Mr Osborne to afford cuts in other forms of taxation - including, for example, his recent idea of abolishing stamp duty on shares.  Labour think green taxation of airlines will hurt poorer families most, however, and deny sunseeking families their Mediterranean break.  One Labour insider recently told The Independent: "[David Cameron] can have his windmill on top of his house and we'll have Crawley and the north Kent marginals, thank you very much."  We know that Tory voters oppose 'increasing the cost of motoring to encourage less driving' by 65% to 33% (Populus).

George Osborne's intervention does appear to have ended the muddle on Tory tax policy, however.  The contours of policy now appear to be relatively clear:

1. There is unlikely to be any overall reduction in the level of taxation because, David Cameron says, he will take no risks with economic stability.
2. There will be a simplification of the tax system (perhaps along the lines recommended by Lord Forsyth's Tax Commission, which is about to report).
3. There will be reductions in business taxation (perhaps suggested by John Redwood's competitiveness policy group) and these will be paid for by increases in green taxation.
4. Depending upon the extent of green taxation there may be money for a reduction in Britain's most unpopular taxes - including the council tax.

In due course ConservativeHome also predicts that the Tories will take action to reduce the England-to-Scotland tax subsidy.

***
8.30am update: This pdf of George Osborne's Tokyo remarks has just arrived in ConservativeHome's in-box.

Taxpayers pay £300m for Labour's spin machine

On yesterday's Today programme - during a discussion of the twentieth century's most effective Prime Minister - it was suggested that Tony Blair was more of a press officer than a Prime Minister.  The Conservative Party has, this morning, uncovered evidence that the whole Blair government is being taken over by press officers. 

More than 3,200 press officers are now employed to promote the Government's message.  The £300m cost of the 'wages of spin' has trebled since the last year of John Major's premiership:

• Oliver Heald noted that the Home Office alone employs 145 press officers but they have been unable to finesse the PR blunders that have dogged John Reid's department throughout this year.
• John Prescott employs three press officers but no longer has any department.
• Hilariously, on this morning's Today programme, Sarah Montague noted that a BBC reporter tried yesterday to find a comment on the Tories' expose.  The reporter was passed from press officers in Downing Street to the Cabinet Office to the Treasury as each press officer suggested someone else was responsible.  Eventually someone told the BBC reporter that they would need to speak to individual Government departments.  It's good to know that BBC reporters don't get treated any better than someone desperately applying for benefits or anyone else trying to navigate the Whitehall maze.

This obsession with taxpayer-funded propaganda isn't just a New Labour problem.  It's one of the few things that unites the whole Labour Party.  On the London Mayor blog Phil Taylor recently spotlighted Old Labour Ken Livingstone's £100m advertising spending.

Tories stuck in the nineties, says Taxpayers' Alliance

ConservativeHome has got hold of a PowerPoint presentation (a pdf of which is here) that is circulating amongst Conservative and other MPs.  It is from the TaxPayers' Alliance and builds on their weekend opinion poll.  The central argument of the presentation is that the public has an appetite for lower taxation and it presents some of the most potent arguments for capitalising on that appetite.

The presentation suggests that the Tories are behind the curve on tax.  In the 1990s the public were willing to buy Labour's argument that Britain's public services needed a step increase in funding.  The public have now paid for those spending increases but not witnessed sufficient improvements and is now ready for tax relief.  The TPA suggests that the Tories have not caught up with this public mood.  Focus group research by the TPA points to a risk that voters might see Project Cameron as an attempt to 'Blair-ise' the Tories:

"Just a PR man... full of spin... Trying to put a new image on the party... He's following the same game plan as Blair... He says what he thinks we want to hear... He never comes out with policies... He's turning them into New Labour, the way New Labour did... They're all the same... Things need radically changing but they won't do it..."

George Osborne's weekend hint of an abolition of stamp duty on shares has been welcomed in the right-wing press (click on graphic to read The Daily Express' welcome) but has, this morning, brought a putdown from Gordon Brown.  In this morning's FT the Chancellor wrote:

"No political party will be trusted if it promises stability in one breath and unfunded tax cuts in the next. To make unfunded promises, to play fast and loose with stability (indeed to play politics with stability) is a return to the bad old days – something I will never do and the British people will not accept."

Meanwhile former Chancellor Norman Lamont - David Cameron's former boss - has urged the Tory leader to adopt a more balanced approach and keep the Conservative base on-side.  Speaking to ePolitix Lord Lamont warned: "We must not drift into a situation where there are more and more abstentions and that is the option open to core voters."  The 'floating non-voters', identified by Norman Tebbit and Stephan Shakespeare, also need to be energised by a balance of core and breadth messages.

The Times' headline says it all...

For the first instalment of Greg Hurst's biography of Charles Kennedy see The Times.

Mrs T is top PM says BBC's History Magazine

Historian Francis Beckett has decided that Margaret Thatcher is the most effective Prime Minister of the 20th century.  Mr Beckett, who authored a highly critical biography of Mrs Thatcher, put the Iron Lady in the same '5 out of 5' category as Clement Atlee.  They were judged to have (1) a clear idea of what they wanted to achieve in office, and (2) they went on to deliver what they wanted to achieve.

Edward Heath ends up ahead of Winston Churchill in the second tier of Prime Ministers.  But succeeding in taking Britain into the European Economic Community can hardly equal keeping Britain out of a Europe run by Hitler?

Few Tories will have a problem with Tony Blair's mid-table ranking.  Tony Blair is at the bottom of the '3 out of 5' grouping of twentieth century PMs.

Three other Tories - John Major, Anthony Eden and Neville Chamberlain - sit at the bottom of Beckett's list.

McCain gives Cameron a big credibility boost

The Financial Times and Times are reporting that one of the favourites to succeed George W Bush as US President has agreed "in principle" to address the Conservative Party Conference in October.  Senator John McCain's agreement gives David Cameron a big boost on the international stage and is, the FT reports, the result of sustained wooing by Shadow Chancellor George Osborne.  Senator McCain is a hawk in the war on terror - and with Joe Lieberman has argued that the US has failed to deploy adequate troops in Iraq.  More in tune with David Cameron's thinking is Senator McCain's sympathy for Kyoto environmentalism and his caution on tax cuts.

The FT's report coincides with the publication of a paper on Tory-US relations by the Heritage Foundation's highly-respected Nile Gardiner.  Noting that the Conservative Party "has returned as a major force in British politics," Dr Gardiner is worried about the vagueness of Tory foreign policy in general...

"The newly released party manifesto, “Built to Last,” makes no mention at all of the United States and fails to outline a coherent vision or strategy for fighting the global war against Islamic terrorism or confronting the growing threat posed by Iran and other rogue regimes. Nor does it address the future of Britain’s relationship with the European Union."

...but also at the leadership's specific criticisms of Israel:

"Even a Democrat-run White House would balk at the kind of language being used to describe Israeli action against Hezbollah."

Dr Gardiner calls for "greater dialogue and exchange of ideas between British and American conservatives, as well as high-level contacts between shadow cabinet ministers and officials in the executive branch of the U.S. government."  Such contact has been minimal since the infamous falling out between the White House and Michael Howard.  William Hague led a bridge-building visit to Washington in February but Sir Malcolm Rifkind is leading an internal party rebellion against American 'neoconservatism'.

Captions please...

This picture of Tony Blair on his Caribbean holiday appeared in this morning's Daily Mail.

Welfare is Labour's biggest failure

The Americans are celebrating ten years of welfare reform and they really are celebrating.   Signed into law by Bill Clinton (probably his greatest act) and drafted by Newt Gingrich's Republican Congress, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (1996) has had a transformational effect on American welfare.  These are some of the results as tracked by the conservative Heritage Foundation:

• "Overall poverty, child poverty, and black child poverty have all dropped substantially...
• Some 2.9 million fewer children live in poverty today than in 1995...
• Decreases in poverty have been greatest among black children... the poverty rate for black children is now at the lowest point in U.S. history....
• Hunger among children has been cut roughly in half...
• Welfare caseloads have been cut nearly in half and employment of the most disadvantaged single mothers has increased from 50 percent to 100 percent.
• The explosive growth of out-of-wedlock childbearing has come to a virtual halt."

Welfare reform is just one of the pillars of American compassionate conservatism that UK Tories should learn from.  [Next month Greg Clark MP - chairman of the welfare reform subgroup of Iain Duncan Smith's social justice policy group - will be writing three articles for ConservativeHome on what he is learning]. 

The situation in Britain could hardly be more different.  Many of Britain's welfare ills were listed by Sue Reid in a depressing article for last week's Daily Mail.  New Labour, 'Nixon-in-China'-style, had a great opportunity to transform welfare in 1997.  It had a huge parliamentary majority, the goodwill of the British people and an economic inheritance that could have paid for serious welfare reform.  Tony Blair's instincts - as has often been the case - were good and he appointed Frank Field as Minister for Welfare Reform.  But it all came to nothing.  Gordon Brown roadblocked Field's reforms and Labour rebellions (as yesterday's The Business reminded us) scuppered the promise of a 'hand-up, not a handout'.

Because of New Labour's weakness many more Britons lead lives that are not as free and rewarding as their American counterparts.  Resources that could be targeted on Britain's most vulnerable people - the very old, the very sick and the very young - are instead being squandered.  And Britain's economy is ill-prepared for the ever more intense competition from the east.

What issues might frame the next General Election?

Since he became Tory leader David Cameron has sought to both neutralise the political issues that he calculates have hurt the Tories in the past and, secondly, identify the issues of the future:

• On the issues of the past he has, for example, abandoned the patient’s passport and has today repudiated Mrs Thatcher’s stance on sanctions against South Africa.
• In terms of preparing for the future he has emphasised global warming and is about to visit the emerging supereconomy of India (the economy will, after all, always be an election issue).

In ConservativeHome’s final look at the ICM poll for The Taxpayers’ Alliance we spotlight some of the ‘hard facts’ that may come to dominate tomorrow’s electoral landscape.  These ‘hard facts’ were the basis of some of the TPA polling:

• Violent crime is seven times higher than in 1960.
• Three times more people claim Incapacity Benefit than did in 1980 – nearly three million people.
• Many countries in Asia and elsewhere are strengthening free markets, courts, and education systems and are growing fast.
• A quarter of kids now leave school unable to read properly.
• We spend the same as Germany and France on health but the NHS has bigger waiting lists than Germany and France put together.
• The EU and European Courts can make laws for Britain that affect the economy, crime, immigration and terror regardless of what the British people want or how they vote.
• A recent poll for The Times found that over 100,000 Muslims in Britain think of the 7/7 bombers as “martyrs” who were justified.

My own list of ‘hard facts’ would additionally include nuclear proliferation, the increasing portability of devastating weaponry, the demographic timebomb and the ways in which technologies might soon be able to engineer human beings.

Council tax is most unpopular tax

Over the last few hours ConservativeHome has been highlighting the findings of an ICM poll for The Taxpayers' Alliance.  Previous posts have highlighted the arguments most likely to persuade voters of the need for lower taxation and the voters' overall anger at the burden of taxation.

The graphic on the right highlights the taxes that Britons most want to see cut and it is a cut in council tax that wins most agreement from voters.

Lower taxation of businesses - the favoured option of Shadow Chancellor George Osborne - comes bottom of the list but still commands strong support.  The advantage of lower taxation of business - compared to a reduction in council tax - is that it is more likely to have supply-side effects on incentive structures within the economy; dynamically increasing growth and employment.

The Sunday Telegraph reports that George Osborne is actively considering the abolition of stamp duty on share trading.

IN CONSERVATIVEHOME'S FINAL POST ON THE ICM/ TPA POLL - AT 3PM - WE WILL EXAMINE SOME OF THE LONG-TERM CHALLENGES FACING BRITAIN.

Cameron questions Thatcher's South Africa policy

David Cameron has won some banner headlines this morning for repudiating Margaret Thatcher's South Africa policy.  As posted on Thursday, ConservativeHome is supportive of the Tory leader's international development policy and it is difficult to get excited - one way or the other - about his reflections on the Thatcher governments' opposition to sanctions.

David Cameron won't be judged on policy towards apartheid-era South Africa, however.  His generation of politicians will be judged on the problems of their own time.  Everything else is political positioning.  One of the biggest problems - indeed, moral outrages - of our time is the loss of life in Darfur.  The news from this desperate region of Africa remains bleak.  I found this on the Coalition for Darfur blog from just four days ago:

"More than 200 women have been sexually assaulted in the last five weeks alone around Darfur's largest displaced camp, Kalma, an alarming trend that is yet another sign of the region's plummeting security situation.  The situation is so dire that about 300 women convened a meeting in Kalma on Aug. 7 to plead for more help from the outside world - particularly from African Union troops mandated to protect civilians."

I wonder what the Conservative leader of 2020 will make of what David Cameron did - or didn't do - about Darfur?  Did the Leader of the Opposition make it impossible for Tony Blair to ignore this human tragedy by constant campaigning on the subject?

Amnesty International, the Darfur Union and the anti-genocide Aegis Trust are organising a demonstration outside of the Sudanese Embassy on 17th September.  It would be a good opportunity for Mr Cameron to begin raising the Darfur crisis.

The best arguments for cutting taxation...

At 9pm yesterday ConservativeHome spotlighted the headline findings of an ICM poll for the Taxpayers' Alliance which showed that 20% of Britons were seriously considering emigrating from high tax, high crime Britain.  Up until now the Tories have been very cautious about promising lower taxes but George Osborne, according to The Sunday Telegraph, is now considering abolishing stamp duty on share trading.

Throughout today and beginning now we'll be examining some of the more detailed findings of the ICM/ TPA poll.  The TPA researched the arguments most likely to whet the appetite of Britons for lower taxation.  Here are the top five arguments:

1. "Lower taxes would allow you to spend more of your hard-earned money on your own priorities."  81% agreed with this argument and only 10% disagreed.
2. "People have to pay 40% tax if they earn just £32,500, which captures many people like average teachers who aren't rich.  This threshold should be raised significantly so that only the really rich pay 40% tax."  79% agreed and 10% disagreed.
3. "Too many poor people struggle because they have to pay taxes.  If we raise the personal allowance theshold significantly from £5,035, a couple of million of the poorest taxpayers will not have to pay any taxes and average earners will pay less tax too."  78% agreed and 11% disagreed.
4. "Politicians waste money and lower taxes would force them to spend more wisely - we have to budget, so should the politicians."  76% agreed and 12% disagreed.
5. "It's morally wrong that politicians take so much of our money then waste it.  We should cut taxes to force them to budget better."  73% agreed and 15% disagreed.

Somehow the Conservative Party needs to abandon its economically questionable argument that tax cuts endanger economic stability (a proposition rejected in the ICM poll) and start making the case for economy-boosting tax relief.  If the Tory leadership team fails to make that case the Taxpayers' Alliance is determined to make it for the hard-pressed taxpayers of Britain...

Under its young and dynamic leadership of Matthew Elliott and James Frayne the TPA is planning to run adverts online and in cinemas and is creating a Web TV news programme in order to bypass the old media.  TPA also plans to send direct mail to 100,000 businesses and a million homes in the next few months.  It already has 14,000 supporters but is building a grassroots national network with important regional campaigns from the autumn.

AT 10AM CONSERVATIVEHOME WILL PUBLISH A LIST OF THE TAXES THAT VOTERS MOST WANT CUT.

New poll suggests Britain is ready to vote for tax relief

New evidence for the potency of tax and crime as political issues comes from a major new ICM poll for The Taxpayers' Alliance.  Conservative Home is publishing it now to coincide with the first editions of The Sunday Times hitting London's streets (in which the poll findings are due to appear).

The poll finds strong public support for lower taxation and the poll's main findings are summarised on the right >>>

The poll represents a challenge to the current Tory leadership's belief that Britain's voters won't 'buy' tax cuts.  That may have been true in 1997 and 2001 when voters were hungry for investment in public services but it is probably no longer true.  Voters have seen their taxes rise but have seen little improvement in their public services.  They may be ready to support a party that offers a serious package of tax relief and public service reform.  It is vital that the Conservative leadership doesn't just look backwards but anticipates the issues likely to matter at the next General Election.  These issues may include a taxpayers' revolt as well as a demand for seismic action on crime and protection from terrorism.

Just before the last election opinion research by ICM for the Reform think tank pointed to public disappointment at public spending. 85% of voters told ICM that “taxes have gone up but services haven’t improved much and there is a lot of waste”.  81% agreed that “if the government reformed public services and cut waste it could make services better and reduce tax at the same time”.

Many of the Conservative Party's most zealous modernisers blame the party's "obsession" with tax cuts for the scale of recent election defeats.  The postscript below offers an alternative explanation for our 2005 defeat but we should certainly not blame 2005's eleventh hour promise of timid tax cuts for our defeat.

At the time The Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh called Oliver Letwin's £4bn tax cut “a drop in the ocean”. Simon Carr of The Independent, studying the modesty of the Tory prospectus, wrote: “no wonder people can’t be bothered.”  The Economist called the Tories cowardly. It accused the Tories of failing to do the job of offering voters an alternative vision of the size and role of the state. An FT editorial declared: “The challenge for the Tories is to draw a clear line between the tax-and-spend, big-government Labour party, and a lower-tax, smaller-state Conservative administration.” The newspaper concluded that Conservatives had fallen well short of achieving that distinction.

IN CONSERVATIVEHOME'S CONTINUING ANALYSIS OF THE TPA/ICM POLL WE WILL...

• At midnight publish the arguments most likely to persuade voters to vote for lower taxation and highlight the scale of the TPA's own ambitions;
• At 10am tomorrow list the taxes that voters most want relief from;
• At 3pm tomorrow we'll publish the major challenges that face Britain and which could form the backdrop for the 2009/ 2010 General Election.

YouGov records 7% Conservative lead

YouGov's poll for this morning's Telegraph offers a similar headline result to that of ICM's survey for Tuesday's Guardian.  In contrast to ICM, however, YouGov does not find any strong movement between Labour and the LibDems.  It records a 7% Tory lead and helps produce a 6.4% Tory advantage in ConservativeHome's poll of polls.

YouGov finds that by 43% to 36% voters prefer a Conservative government led by David Cameron to a Labour government led by Gordon Brown.

The most interesting component of the YouGov poll is a comparison between voting intentions at last May's General Election and today.  A Telegraph leader is underwhelmed by the overall Labour to Tory swing of 4% but that swing hides significant differences.  The swing to the Conservatives amongst women, for example, is 6% but only 2% amongst men.  It is 9% in London but just 2% in the North West and 3% in Yorks & Humber.  Jonathan Scott wrote about the Tories' continuing 'northern problem' on yesterday's Platform.

RETURN TO CONSERVATIVEHOME AT 9PM TONIGHT FOR A MAJOR ANALYSIS OF WHAT PEOPLE THINK ABOUT POLITICS, POLICY AND THE CAMERON PROJECT.

Garnier attacks proposed shoplifting guidelines

Shadow Home Affairs Minister Edward Garnier has reacted with dismay to news that first-time shoplifters might be greenlighted by the authorities:

"These proposals represent a significant softening of the punishment for shoplifting. The law-abiding public expect that people stealing from shops should be properly punished, particularly if they are persistent offenders. We need to avoid a situation where the proper custodial deterrents for shoplifting are reduced to mere occupational hazards like small fines and conditional discharges.  The Government has not provided enough prison places and, as a result, is having to release prisoners early or not send them to prison in the first place. The public and the criminal justice system deserve better."

The maximum sentence for shoplifting is currently seven years but an advisory panel to the Home Office has recommended ending the practice of jailing offenders.   Already the chances of imprisonment are low.  Of 280,461 recorded offences last year only 13,135 were imprisoned - most of those found guilty were punished with penalty fines.  Shoplifting reportedly adds £1 to the average family's weekly bills.

David Cameron's big idea is... fraternity (says Danny Kruger)

ConservativeHome recently revealed that Danny Kruger was leaving The Telegraph to become special adviser to David Cameron.  He provides the cover feature for this month's Prospect magazine and he identifies his new boss' big idea as 'fraternity'.  Prospect declares that Danny is writing in a personal capacity - but given that CCHQ distributed the article via email yesterday afternoon we can conclude that they are quite happy to be associated with it.

The article is beautifully-written and focuses on one of the most important debates in politics.  For the left individuals are largely connected with one another through the state.  Through those connections they receive their education and their welfare, for example.  For the right, in contrast, individuals are largely joined together by society.  It's a subject dear to my heart and when I ran CCO's Renewing One Nation policy unit I oversaw the publication of 'There is such a thing as society'.

For Danny, "fraternity does not concern the freedom of the individual (the abstract one) or the equality of the people (the abstract all) but the quality of relationships among the communities we inhabit: the real some."  He continues:

"Fraternity is the sphere of belonging, of membership, the sphere of identity and particularity. It exists in civil society, in the arena of commercial and social enterprise, of family and nation. It concerns neighbourhood, voluntary association, faith, and all the other elements of identity that relate us to some and distinguish us from others. It concerns culture."

Up until now Cameron has spoken of 'shared responsibility' rather than 'fraternity' but the Tory leader is clearly interested in the great mix of people-sized institutions that lie between the individual and the state and which give our lives their richness and meaning.

It's early days to know what practical action is going to flow from this big idea (if it is Mr Cameron's big idea).  But Danny Kruger, as one would expect, is hopeful...

• David Cameron is committed to localism, he writes: "Localism is one of the defining themes of today's Conservative party... Localism comprehends both liberty, the belief that people should be trusted to make the decisions that affect their own neighbourhoods, and fraternity, the recognition that a community is all in it together." But are David Cameron's instincts really localist?  There wasn't much localism on show earlier this week when the ability of local Conservative parties to choose their own candidates was sacrificed in order to meet CCHQ's centralised target for more women MPs. Very Gordon Brown and a decision rightly criticised by the Direct Democracy group.
• Danny Kruger correctly identifies the corrosive effect of Gordon Brown's tax burden: "We are suffering what Keith Joseph long ago called "the pocket money society": a combination of high taxes, high house prices, expensive pensions and large welfare entitlements runs the risk of infantilising the population, leaving us each with just enough money to spend on pleasure but not enough to spend on the responsibilities of adulthood."  But what is Team Cameron proposing to do about Gordon Brown's record tax levels?  Almost nothing.  Danny Kruger defends Team Cameron by pointing to plans to prioritise cuts in business taxation.  Businesses, says Danny, are "the fraternal glue that holds many communities together."  True but tax relief for families and charities is probably more important for ending that 'pocket money society'.
• Danny Kruger's third reason for hope is David Cameron's commitment to marriage and the family: "The promotion of marriage will promote liberty. More importantly, it will also promote fraternity. The evidence shows that, more often than the alternatives, the institution of marriage binds a family together, helping children grow up happy and socialised."  The jury is still out on David Cameron's commitment to the family although I am optimistic that IDS' social justice policy group will be clear in the need to support marriage.  David Cameron hedged his bets in his recent speech on family policy and he certainly faces opposition from the likes of Tim Yeo to dilute his leadership pledge on a tax allowance for married couples.

Danny Kruger may have an uphill struggle making the rhetoric match the policy agenda but it is very good news that he is in the leader's office - making the case for 'fraternity' to be a central feature of Project Cameron.

The working (not workers') revolution

Picking up on a theme touched on in Cameron's Google Zeitgeist speech, Philip Hammond, Shadow Work & Pensions Secretary, has been talking about encouraging flexible working practices:

"Flexible working practice is a key element in the delivery of economic competitiveness, social justice, affordability in public service delivery and an improvement in General Well Being. Making work accessible will form a cornerstone of the next Conservative Government's programme for delivering its social, economic and environmental objectives."

Like most policy announcements in this part of the electoral cycle it is more visionary than practical, but Hammond did offer some indications of what he hoped would happen:

• Less 9-to-5 and more flexi-time and job-sharing
• More working from home
• People will stay on the books for occasional work when retiring
• Workers would be more freelance, having zero-hour contracts with several employers
• The Government, as Britain's biggest employer, would take a lead in promoting flexibility by "deregulating to permit it"

His main rationale is that conventional working practices are anachronistic when companies are increasingly interacting with competitive economies in different time zones, and that more flexible working will increase our human capital - "the natural resource of Britain". It will also increase productivity as workers will have "an enhanced working environment".

Hammond went on to say that writing off the 2.7 million people on incapacity benefit as completely unemployable is a "terrible waste of human resource", and that Britain's 5 million people on out-of-work benefits should help plug the gaps in the labour market rather than economic migrants. Just as the job-for-life is a thing of a past, the line between employment and unemployment will be increasingly blurred.

Apart from anything else, it's a welcome change to see a relatively low-profile member of the Shadow Cabinet being given the chance to make a significant speech on their brief rather than the leader.

Deputy Editor

David Cameron's African mission

David Cameron has made a surprise visit to Africa and has issued an enthusiastic statement after meeting Nelson Mandela:

"Nelson Mandela is the most remarkable statesman of our age, and I found his insights into the challenges facing South Afric, the continent of Africa and the wider world hugely valuable... What struck me most were his personal qualities - his warmth, his wisdom, his sense of humour and his optimism...  Engaging in the challenges facing Africa is a key part of modern Conservatism.  I think it's vital to learn first-hand from the people and organisations working on the ground."

BBC Online carries a report of the Mandela-Cameron meeting.

Editor's note: "David Cameron's approach to Africa has been a welcome contrast to his approach to the environment.  In both cases the Tory leader is rightly attempting to broaden the appeal of the Conservative Party by emphasising issues that have been neglected by his predecessors.  In his approach to the environment he has broken ranks with other international conservative leaders and embraced the failed environmentalism of Kyoto.  Fortunately, in his approach to Africa and global poverty the Conservative leader has largely recommended authentic conservative solutions.  Recently, for example, he proposed aid vouchers as a more effective way of targeting development assistance and his development spokesman, Andrew Mitchell (pictured), has  recommended a free trade zone for Africa.  One of David Cameron's best speeches during his leadership bid was on global poverty last November.  He emphasised the importance of property rights, attacked Christian Aid's disdain for capitalism and called for a focus on 'killer diseases'.  The appointment of Peter Lilley as head of the global poverty policy group was a further reassurance for authentic conservatives.

As David Cameron continues to 'modernise' the Conservative Party, ConservativeHome will always pose two tests:

1. As we drive our tanks on to our opponents' turf - as David Cameron has been doing on the environment and on global and domestic poverty - are we fighting with distinctively conservative weapons or are we adopting the failed methods of the left?  When David Cameron spoke to the Centre for Social Justice about UK poverty in January he gave strong indications that his approach to poverty-fighting would be authentically conservative with an emphasis on the voluntary sector, welfare reform and strengthening of the family.
2. As we occupy new territory are we dangerously abandoning existing strongholds or are we broadening the party's appeal?  With David Cameron's renewed emphasis on homeland security and a more robust position on immigration from new EU member states, there have recently been welcome signs of a movement towards ConservativeHome's 'politics of and'.

PS Let us hope that while in Africa Mr Cameron makes a significant statement on Darfur.  The Tory leader made much of his commitment to this deeply troubled part of the world during his leadership bid but has been strangely silent on the situation in Sudan ever since."

Francis Maude attacks Labour's increasing dependence on union funding

Latest figures from the Electoral Commission show that 74% of Labour's latest declared donations of £3.4m came from the trade union movement.  Francis Maude is unimpressed:

"Labour is now almost entirely dependent on the unions for funding. In return, they’re getting pet policies and bungs with taxpayers’ money. This sort of cronyism undermines our entire democratic process. That’s why we put forward proposals earlier this year to clean up politics, including a cap on political donations, whether from an individual, a company, or any other institution, including a trade union. It should come as no surprise that Labour has already rejected them out of hand.”

In the same press release CCHQ lists three  major policy gifts from Labour to the unions:

• "Under an agreement reached with the unions in July 2004, the ‘Warwick Agreement’, Labour agreed over 60 concessions, including the watering down of anti-strike legislation and additional Government funding for the unions. In return, the unions agreed to provide funding for Labour’s 2005 General Election campaign.
• Labour introduced the Employment Relations Act 2004 which created a £10 million ‘modernisation fund’ for the unions, with few conditions attached.
• Labour bowed to union pressure and shelved plans to force existing public sector employees to retire at 65."

Meanwhile the Conservative Party faces pressure to declare the source of historical loans.  Peter Watt, Labour's General Secretary, told BBC: "It appears that the Tories have only declared loans taken out in the last quarter. In addition to this they still have not declared who their overseas lender was."

Immigration tops tabloid agenda

Both today's Mail and Sun highlight Labour's failure to control immigration into Britain.

The Daily Mail notes that "it will take more than a century to clear the backlog of failed asylum seekers."  It bases this estimate on the fact that there are 400,000 rejected asylum seekers still living in Britain but that in the last year there have only been 3,500 more deportations than new cases.

The Sun, meanwhile, contrasts the number of actual immigrants with those predicted by the Government:

"One million migrants have poured into Britain in the past two years, it was revealed yesterday.  Of those, 427,095 were from ten countries which joined the European Union in May 2004.  Ministers had estimated that number would be only 26,000 — a rate of 13,000 a year."

Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green (who, on Sunday, called for restrictions on economic immigration from Romania and Bulgaria) is quoted in both stories.  Tory strategists have clearly decided to keep David Cameron away from the subject but deploy the home affairs team to debate an issue that is dominating the tabloid news agenda.

George Osborne considers reform of inheritance tax

A week ago ConservativeHome readers approved a call for the abolition of inheritance tax.  On Sunday Stephen Byers issued his surprise call for the abolition of the "unfair and punitive" tax.  The Taxpayers' Alliance was impressed with the Byers intervention and feared the Conservative Party was in danger of being left behind:

"What is also interesting is the fact that the Lib Dems and now factions within the Labour Party are starting to see the potential that campaigning on taxes has. The Lib Dems have correctly judged that the issue of thresholds is extremely powerful electorally - we think the same. And Byers is right that the public also dislike inheritance tax and that message can be made popular, just as Alan Milburn was right to flag up the issue of the failure of tax credits back in the Spring... Unfortunately, many in the Conservative Party are still determined to campaign today as if we were still in the 1990s. They cling to a belief that talking about lower taxes will make them look "selfish", "out-of-touch" etc. That is wrong and they risk being left behind if they don't accept this fast."

This morning's Telegraph reports that George Osborne thinks it "irresponsible" to commit to scrapping IHT this far from a General Election but he did say that he was looking at reform options.  These include "raising the threshold, cutting the rate, or exempting a person's primary home".

LibDem surge lifts 40% Tories to election-winning lead

After grassroots anger at David Cameron’s new changes to candidate selection the Conservative leader receives a big boost from a new ICM opinion poll in The Guardian.  The Conservatives enjoy a 40% to 31% lead over Labour – enough, writes The Guardian’s Julian Glover, for David Cameron to enjoy a narrow parliamentary majority.

The growth in the Tory lead is because of a marked shift of support from Labour to the LibDems.  Labour is down four points and the LibDems up five.  The 22% standing for the LibDems would appear to vindicate (in electoral terms) Ming’s strong criticisms of Tony Blair’s solidarity with Israel.  Labour will be surprised that it receives no benefit from John Reid’s sure-footed handling of the recent terror alert.  72% of voters told ICM that government policy has only increased Britain’s vulnerability to terrorism.

The Conservatives now enjoy a 6% lead in ConservativeHome’s poll of polls.

A for Effort, D for Results

The Bow Group have today published a policy brief with this title, challenging some currently received wisdom in education policy.

Its author, Mark Nicholson, is a Chartered Accountant, financial analyst and former candidate for Ealing Southall.

He reveals some reasons for the failure of Labour's five education secretaries to produce results (despite a 53% real increase in their budget since 1997). His main findings are:

• Internationally, there is no correlation between performance in reading and maths, and per pupil spending.
• A lot of funding has gone into reducing class sizes, but international comparisons suggest that small classes make no meaningful difference to learning.
• Teacher salaries have increased but bureaucracy is putting them off, with the number of vacancies as a proportion of available positions staying at a similar level to 9 years ago.
• Money has been pumped into quangos (such as the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and the Learning and Skills Council) with little to show for it.

Nicholson concludes that resources are most effective when they affect "softer factors" like teaching time, teacher-student relations and school discipline. If the government had focused its massive influx of funding on these things, the quality of British education could have been transformed over the last decade.

Deputy Editor 

Labour isn't fit for its purpose

Sir Jeremy Beecham, Chair of Labour's NEC, admitted quietly on Friday that donations to Labour had "disappeared" since the cash for peerages scandal was uncovered. He said he was considering requesting the Phillips inquiry to ask for more government money to cover Tony Blair's security at all Party events.

The Telegraph's front page features a starker story today:

• Labour may not pay September's wage bill for its 230 employees
• Labour MPs will be asked to cough up £1000 out of their salary
• Unions such as Unison were being leaned onto provide more money
• The Party's accounts are described as "woefully insolvent" by a senior accountant
• Lord Levy's fund-raising department is being disbanded, making several of its key employees redundant
• Voluntary redundancies are being sought amongst staff at its northern office in Newcastle

Labour deny the first three points, but it would be politically significant if Labour really is courting the Trade Unions for more money. Like government grants, their funding would not come without strings so we would expect more of a "true Labour" manifesto at the next election rather than a New Labour one.

Considering that the number of Labour Party members has more than halved whilst they have been in power, and the number of its Councillors dramatically reduced at local elections, its ability to put up a decent fight at the next election has got to be seriously questioned.

Conservative Associations were recently urged to raise annual membership subscriptions to at least £25 by January, although this would just bring them closer to the current membership rates of the other parties. Pointing out that the Conservative and LibDem accounts were hardly ship-shape, the Telegraph's leader warned of renewed calls for full state-funding of political parties:

"This is an idea that must be shouted down at once: rather than imposing an ethic of good housekeeping on the parties, it would merely encourage them to waste more of our money instead of their own. A better and far more popular approach would be for the leaders to agree that the whole edifice of British party politics must be scaled down for the general good."

Political parties do of course have a vested interest in funding themselves the easy way, but Conservatives should resist this. It would not only be staying true to our principles, but - assuming we can keep the faith of our own activists - it would stop a dying Labour Party being bailed out by the taxpayers.

Deputy Editor