« ComRes: Conservatives on 46% | Main | The new UKIP »

Comments

I agree very much with this assessment and certainly believe that what we have to say on schools will resonate with the public - especially those parents whose children have the misfortune to attend "failing" schools!
On transport - Yes I am afraid we should be doing more - in the run up to 2012 this is one of the most important things we have to get right. Not only does London have unique problems in this area but rail transport and ticketing is woeful and as for air travel....!! I am sure our policy makers have some good ideas and we would all like to see them.

" reforms will also encourage economically and socially creative citizens "

Be radical, let new business operate completely tax-free until it has had time to build a healthy job-creating infrastructure.

" the most anti-protectionist party in Europe "

What chance has Chris Grayling got of getting a million plus people off benefit if we are importing goods we can produce ourselves and having work that could be done here outsourced?

The Conservative leadership should not be so ideological over this issue. We all support trade, but our people want to see trade that is in Britain's national interest.

Its no good turning around and saying as a nation we are in profit because we sell financial services, that means nothing to the 5.4 million on benefits. They want jobs not an economy built to serve the money-lending community.

One specific point on the scrapping of centralised IT projects, following on from suggestions earlier this week that the government was even now busily signing up to massive procurement contracts with severe penalty clauses, would be to make it clear now that our cancellation of these projects would go hand in hand with a firm commitment to repudiate the penalty clauses, via legislation if necessary. Who would shed a tear if our coming to power meant that the likes of Capita had to issue profits warnings, having grown fat on eleven previous years of government waste and extravagance?

* commitment to match Labour's spending plans: that must now be ditched. By all means identify some key areas (Defence, NHS, Education etc) where we can commit to maintaining present spending in real terms. Otherwise commit to reducing the size of government and torching redtape and other waste.
* strengthen the BoE: in what ways? By all means give the BoE responsibility for regulating house lending by banks and building societies. It would be disastrous to have another boom fuelled by 125% mortgages and sub-prime loans.
*Education: one of the great strengths of our educational system is the private sector. I argued yesterday in commenting on George Osborne's interview that Simon Heffer is right in suggesting that private schools could assist in turning round failing state schools.
Taxes; I have argued with several others for the lowest earners to be removed from IT up to the level of susbsistence. I have also argued for the simplification of the benefit system, with benefits possibly being paid out as negative IT. That would probably require Customs and Excise being hived off again and Tax and Benefits coming together.
* The Treasury Team: I make my usual comment that if GO is to become Chancellor (as it seems DC insists) then his team must contain people with a similar grasp of the brief as, say, Vince Cable. Many of us on ConHome remain to be convinced that the present team has this level of competence.
It is no good having excellent policies, if we don't have good enough people to implement them.

Tax really is key here, particularly for business. How can we get the economy going again if business isn't growing and people are not spending. We need to free-up money to make the economy, the only way to do that is through aggressive tax-cuts, after all there is no longer any credit, so tax-cuts are the only show in town.

There is a major and serious omission of the most costly portfolio - health.

It is most disappointing of the Conservatives not to have a clear and distinctive policy for a new health system that is also fit for the whole United Kingdom, not four separate NHSs.

Mr Osborne is not fit for high office as shown by his reluctance to shape a distinctive conservative policy for taxation and expenditure. He tinkers at the edges of the problem, fearful of the media reaction should he be radical.

David bechamber

I believe you are spot on re income tax. I believe (don't the LibDemented think the same too?)that the personal allowance should be at subsistence level/£10k - whichever is the higher. I'd be happy for revenue to be consolidated with benefits and customs removed.

Some important things missing here:

Monetary Policy - Osborne has said he will move away from inflation tageting. He's also said he would look at employing capital requirement as an instrument of macroeconomic policy (as opposed merely to financial stability policy).

Free Trade - Are we still wanting to establish a free trade area between the EU and the US? That certainly *used* to be our policy.

Health/NHS - Surely our health policy is much our "ugliest" area? Anyone here really think it more than incoherent populism?

"Its no good turning around and saying as a nation we are in profit because we sell financial services, that means nothing to the 5.4 million on benefits. They want jobs not an economy built to serve the money-lending community."

That sounds worryingly like the sort of thing early 1980s Labour or the modern BNP would have in their manifesto.

RichardJ, well, at the risk of controversy the BNP is right on this particular issue, we are losing jobs to outsourcing and because we don't produce for ourselves anymore. You will find that most ordinary people hold that opinion too.

It's a shame that just as Labour's policies on the economy, health and education are collapsing in heaps that our own alternatives have been so severely compromised.
By promising "to share the proceeds of growth" as well as other footling and minor changes to the grotesque infrastructures of public health and education, we risk throwing away the best chance in generation to make life significantly better for those at the bottom of the heap.

"You will find that most ordinary people hold that opinion too."

You will find that most ordinary people do not want to give up the cheap goods that come from China. In fact there was a poll done a while ago comparing attitudes between Britons and Americans (I think it was featured on this website) which showed us to be far keener on free trade than the Americans. The fact is that the majority of people in this country haven't lost their jobs to foreign labour. If they had we would have mass unemployment, civil unrest and a protectionist party would have swept to power by now. The point about outsourcing is it cuts costs, allowing money to be invested in different jobs back here. If our agricultural sector was as large as it used to be we wouldn't have enough people to work in services or manufacturing.

Incidently I'm no fan of foreign call centres but I wouldn't want the government to ban companies from setting them up abroad.

" If they had we would have mass unemployment "

Really, what do you call 5.4 million on benefit, 1.67 million on JSA? Is that not a mass of people? The fact is the shift away from manufacturing and in favour of a import-heavy service-sector economy has created millions on benefit since the late 1970s. People who refuse to see cause and effect have their heads in the sand or are being dishonest.

Several years ago I was told by a very high ranking person in the Conservative party that the destruction of manufacturing was deliberate and was a strategy to disable organized labour unions and by so doing weaken the Labour party. This was the reason for the large scale shift to a service sector economy during the Thatcher era. Perhaps also a reason why some Conservatives don't want to see the return of hard industries, even though it is the only way to take millions of benefit.

Some of the comments suggest the writers are too young to remember the 80s and 90s when every foulup in the public services was put down to "Tory cuts" or "Tory underfunding". Unless you keep overall expenditure at a generally accepted level, say a European average, public services become uncontrolable and a source of endless anti Conservative news. Be assured that Labour and the BBC will be hovering looking for post code lottery health, new schools where financial "irregularities" have appeared, or can plausably be claimed to be existing. (Put yourself in a position of an NHS manager in charge of a foulup and the media are yelling Tory cuts; are you going to hold a press conference and admit it was your fault and not the Tories? I suspect in the 90s public sector lefties might have engineered some foulups to get the Tory government bad publicity. Of course this means a general reduced need by public workers to get it right?)

Any organisation and public spending level that does not take into account a continuous war by the left to undermine, or indeed wreck, public service reforms will be unlikely to succeed. This has to place a limit on the amount of organisational and financial change you may wish to introduce.

I didn't mention health as it's less directly about the economy except insofar as it consumes taxes inefficiently. It could come under my final point about market-based reforms in the public sector.

"Several years ago I was told by a very high ranking person in the Conservative party that the destruction of manufacturing was deliberate and was a strategy to disable organized labour unions and by so doing weaken the Labour party."

Come on Tony, you must have been at a very good party. In fact, under the Tories, manufacturing improved; in the last three years of Conservative government manufacturing employment increased by 400k, under Labour it has fallen by about 1,500k. It is worth remembering that this suited Brown since the substitution of Chinese goods for ours allowed him to increase his borrowing without increasing inflation.

You guys on this site are like ostrich`s with there heads in the sand. Tax cuts will mean Labour will win the election. Haven`t you learned anything from past election defeats. Promise tax cuts and Labour will play the politics of fear and make the public fear the cuts will be at the expense of front line services.
Keep on playing the same old song of tax cuts as the party as done in the past then its good bye to victory and hello yet another defeat!!

"Really, what do you call 5.4 million on benefit, 1.67 million on JSA?"

The latter figure isn't particularly shocking, the current unemployment rate (around 5%) is lower than in most European nations (including Germany and France with their large manufacturing sectors).

Where is the 5.4 million figure from and what sort of benefit are these people on?

Incidently millions of new jobs have been created in the past few years, the problem is that they haven't gone to the natives. Nevertheless it shows that employment opportunities do exist. The other factor to take into account is that technology has reduced the number of people required in manufacturing. Manufacturing productivity actually increased in the 1980s despite people beind laid off because a lot of those people employed were superfluous. My point is that even if we were to have a manufacturing revival, I can't see it absorbing 5 million people.

David Sergeant, under Mr Major, yes, but by that time the damage was done, then paradoxically it was the Labour government that finished the job that the Thatcher governments started in wiping out manufacturing. David, we can't measure the economy just in terms of cash-flow, thats a favourite trick of the free-traders. We should measure the economy on its effect on our people, thats is unemployment, alienation, social breakdown etc. Gordon Brown's glove puppet relationship with the BOE in keeping Sterling arificially overvalued is what 'masked'inflation. Now that Sterling is starting to collapse we will see how expensive import dependency is. Politicians and economists need to stop counting the stitching and start seeing the whole pattern.

RichardJ, I'm shocked at the way this generation sees millions on the dole as being normal and inevitable. The problems in Germany stem long-term from re-unification.

RichardJ, it depends what you call a job? Is cleaning a civic centre for a few hours a week and having that money topped up by tax-credits a job? I'm talking about creating jobs that take people out of state dependency entirely, full-time jobs that can produce better wages out of productivity. We should be aiming to at least double our manufacturing base and have it supply our domestic market, that way we could create a million jobs, end JSA unemployment and ease the crushing burden on the treasury. The current economy leads to a half work/half benefits culture reliant on tax-credits.

Not too many comments please Tony, it jams up the thread.

;-)

OK Editor, actually I only intend to make the one comment but end up getting sucked into counterpoint! I will be 'Conservative' in the number of posts from now on.

"RichardJ, I'm shocked at the way this generation sees millions on the dole as being normal and inevitable."

Seeing as unemployment has never been below one million since the 1970s it's hardly surprising. In fact unemployment was only below this level in the 1950s and 1960s (when we had a great deal of overmanning and the trade unions were too powerful). Unless I'm mistaken we don't have any pre-WWI figures.

"Is cleaning a civic centre for a few hours a week and having that money topped up by tax-credits a job?"

Yes. If you're getting paid to work it's a job. We shouldn't try and interfere with the structure of our economy just because some people aren't prepared to do jobs they consider degrading. Somebody has to do them. Incidently I doubt those who have come over here from Eastern Europe (most of whom are doing full-time work, many in skilled jobs like plumbing) are on tax credits.

Just to recommend that before anyone posts anything more they first read Jack Stone at 16.50. People may be more amenable to tax cuts but not by very much and that would probably disappear when Balls lists out the X nurses and Y teachers that he says will have to go. The problem with so many on this site is that they make it clear they want tax cuts under any circumstance and the latest statistic is just being used to bash Cameron. (Hardly ever Brown note. Have you ever seen such nonsense when Labour and Brown's economy grinds to a halt all sorts of (right wing) people are not lambasting Brown but Osborne for not having a tax cutting answer for a time 20 months hence. With these sort of people no wonder we get called the nasty party.) Also recommend bloggers here read Redwood's and Forsyth's approach, their way of putting it is much more likely to make tax cuts seem logical and something other than an electoral liability.

Tony Makara

I find it incredible that you are still peddling the protectionist line.

If our workforce and the Companies that they work for are uncompetitive the answer is not to protect them. We all remember the results of that from the 60's and 70's, a complete shambles with the man in the street paying the cost of highly expensive UK products, the result we were virtually bankrupt as a nation by 1979

Very Conservative (i.e. conserve the existing order), but just really an expression of being more New Labour than New Labour.

I think Labour would take a 50:50 split of future elections at the moment though if you are just going to offer more of the same.

Comrade Norton

I really believe that the evil that is Socialism is coming to a very rapid end

I sincerely hope so!!

I truly dislike any idea of exempting lower-earners from income-tax. To do so means that society's lower echelons will be incentivised to vote for parties who offer high levels of tax-funded spending, safe in the knowledge that they are not actually going to be the ones paying for it.

Far better - ethically - to have a *zero* income-tax threshold, but to have the standard level of income-tax set very low [say 10% on all income up to something like £100,000]. That way everyone who has an income is 'involved' and contributing to tax-funded services - and they'll have a serious, positive incentive to vote in future for those parties who promise to keep the standard rate of income-tax low.

Richard Calhoun and RichardJ, I'd love to respond to your points in depth but I've been told to limit my comments by the editor. So perhaps its best if I don't post on ComeHome again because its not really possible to have an effective debate if I'm not allowed to reply to the points made by your good selves. I do try to limit the number of my posts but feel its only fair and polite that I try to reply to the arguments made.

I've had a think about this and have decided that big issues like reviving the British economy can't be confined to a rationed debate. This combined with the vile abuse that some contributors are forced to endure from others, who have nothing serious to add to the level of debate, makes me wonder whether its all worth the effort.

Good luck to everyone in the next election, whenever it is called. Good luck especially to Louise Bagshawe who has the will to win.

"(Hardly ever Brown note. Have you ever seen such nonsense when Labour and Brown's economy grinds to a halt all sorts of (right wing) people are not lambasting Brown but Osborne for not having a tax cutting answer for a time 20 months hence. With these sort of people no wonder we get called the nasty party.)"

Maybe because they don't expect Brown to tax cuts but they think Osborne should know better.


"So perhaps its best if I don't post on ComeHome again because its not really possible to have an effective debate if I'm not allowed to reply to the points made by your good selves."

I think what Tim means is that he'd rather you put your replies in one post instead of posting 3 times in a row. In any case you can still comment on other topics that don't result in long-running discussions. The only reason the protectionist debates go on so long is because it's an unorthodox position and do will inevitably invite some heated responses, although the personal abuse is certainly unnecessary.

Please stop giving credit to BAA break-up to Theresa Villiers!!!!!! Tim Yeo wanted it in the 2005 manifesto. Its been Tory policy for years. No-one in the aviation industry respects Villiers. She is embarrasing. I'm told she hadnt even read the CC report until much later on the day it was published. Which is why she was emabarrased on News 24, and the Today programme the saturday before.

I hope you don't go Tony. Even though we disagree on some things this site will be poorer without your contributions.
I'm pretty sure Tim was not suggesting you don't reply to everybody , I think he just prefers it if you do it in one big post rather than multiple smaller posts.
Above all please don't be put off blogging by an ignorant half wit like Steevo. Although he's really not worth bothering with , annoying him should be regarded as a badge of honour.

Tony, we may have little in common on economic matters, but I regard your postings on foreign affairs as a much needed counterbalance to the neoconservatism which tends to dominate among the CentreRight contributors.

You should continue to post. For those of us with a sceptical view of foreign interventionism, it's a case of all hands on deck...

Tony Makara:
Toughen up and grow up. Yaaahh, shutta your face.
I am not sure but will hazard a guess that as these blogs trip over at 50 posts to the next page, that what Editor-wallah is about is keeping number of posts, no matter how long, to a manageable one-page number, if he can. Tripping over the page is irritating. So take all your opponents on in one post, as does Mr Lilico rather than in 3 or 4.
You haven't been told not to post, just not in little bits (my understanding). If I am wrong and there is another reason, well I would like to know what it is. My education in the world of blogging will be improved thereby.

I didn't mention health as it's less directly about the economy except insofar as it consumes taxes inefficiently.
The NHS now though takes such a huge proportion of public spending now, it is emerging as the biggest spender and it seems that none of the 3 main political parties would be prepared to countenance even short term cuts in the budget as a percentage of GDP, but are happy to propose even increasing it further as if it was some kind of auction for power.

Tony Makara

Before you blog again on this site have a long hard think about the logic of your position in advocating protectionism.

It is not logical.

"If our workforce and the Companies that they work for are uncompetitive the answer is not to protect them. "

Its a different issue here, for it isn't about protecting uncompetitive industries, its about protecting our industrial base from the short termism of the City. Too much of our industrial base has been subjected to what ever fashion or mood that sweeps the City, usually dictated to be the need to earn fat fees for their US owned merchant banks, and the need to buy this years Ferrari or Porsche!

Was it really in our interest to see all our utilities being flogged off? I bet right now quite a few pension funds would very much like to have the guaranteed income that utilities generate.

But its not a question of trying to protect what we have from the short termism of the City, against the desire of protected foreign industries who want to take a chunk of our market, but also trying to nurture developing industries. A recent study showed that many of the bio-tech companies which show potential are again flogged off before they can amount to anything.

So what future is there for us if all our mature industries are flogged off because of the short termism demands of the City, while all the green shoots of new industries are also flogged off before they can amount to anything?

If we were doing 80 years ago what we are doing now BP wouldn't exist as a company, it would have been flogged off a long long time ago!

"My point is that even if we were to have a manufacturing revival, I can't see it absorbing 5 million people. "

RichardJ but we ain't going to do it without a revival in manufacturing.

Look at our trade figures. We run an £80 billion trade deficit, only in part compensated by a £30 billion surplus in services, this with the worlds largest financial sector. Now no matter have much we try and grow the City, it isn't going to fill that £50 billion balance of payments deficit. We have to find a way to breathe some life back into our manufacturing sector!

"We have to find a way to breathe some life back into our manufacturing sector!"

Fine by me, as long as it's done by market incentives rather than tariffs, subsidies and other forms of coercion.

Iain 25 august 11.03

The only way to achieve a manufacturing revival is to reduce bureaucracy, taxes and large parts of the Employment Protection Act and then you may find Companies willing to take real risks.

Any other way is simply short termism and will not work

Monetary policy.

"Strengthening the independence of the Bank of England" is not a monetary policy - it is simply passing the buck by having other people make monetary policy.

Should there be continued credit/money expansion or not?

If so, how much?

That is monetary policy - not "well we have set up this group of people over here to make the choices for us".

After all, contrary to the propaganda, the Bank of England has made a right mess of monetary policy over the last few years - it is has created a credit/money boom that must lead to a bust.

"Free trade".

British governments do not have a trade policy (free trade or not) - the E.U. makes policy in this area. And the E.U. decides on the regulations for most domestic economic life as well.

Are we going to take back these powers from the E.U. or not?

If not - then it is pointless to talk about free trade or domestic deregulation.

"Taxes and government spending".

I have seen no clear policy on these matters.

Tony, I know how irrationally annoying getting involved in an online debate can be. I found that taking six months off in protest at excess Zionism on ConHome made me feel better.

However, I do think that having my advocacy for King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia's peace plan criticised was a little bit more irritating than the very polite request from our esteemed ed. after you had posted three comments in a row.

See you when you've had a rest.

H.Con.Resolution 417

The U.S. has abundant domestic supplies of both oil and natural gas, both of which are currently unavailable for exploration in an environmentally friendly manner.

According to an August 2008 Rassmussen Reports poll, 61 percent of Americans support drilling for gas.

Is it right that the 110th Congress adjourned for the month of August 2008 without passing meaningful legistlation to reauthorize tax credits for alternative energy production? The response is most certainly no, since it will be expiring at the end of 2008. The Congress has failed to pass comprehensive energy legislation, and this situation needs to change.

Our continued reliance on foreign sources of oil undermines the United States national security. In addition, since January 2008, rising energy prices resulted in tens of thousands of Americans losing their jobs.In addition, nationwide unemployment continues to rise, and has increased from 4.9 percent to 6.1 percent since January 2008.

Dak

The comments to this entry are closed.

#####here####

Categories

ConHome on Twitter

    follow me on Twitter

    Conservative blogs

    Today's public spending saving

    New on other blogs

    • Receive our daily email
      Enter your details below:
      Name:
      Email:
      Subscribe    
      Unsubscribe 

    • Tracker 2
    • Extreme Tracker