Nine out of ten Tory members happy with leadership's approach to tax, spend and debt

Yesterday we hoped that David Cameron's announcement on spending might produce an outbreak of peace in the Conservative Party (at least on economic policy).  We emailed out a quick survey to see if you agreed.  1,092 members answered the survey over the following eight hours. The results are encouraging:

We asked: "How do today's Tory announcements on greater public spending restraint affected your view of the party leadership?"

• 41% replied that "it makes me view them much more positively";
• 42% said "a little more positively";
• 2% said "much more negatively";
• 5% said "a little more negatively";
• 10% said it made no difference or they didn't know.

At least as significantly we found that Tory members were overwhelmingly content with the overall economic policy stance adopted by the leadership.

In a forced choice we asked respondents to say which of the two following statements they most agreed with:

• "Higher borrowing is necessary to pay for a fiscal stimulus to help Britain beat the recession"
• or "Britain cannot afford higher borrowing. Any reduction in taxes must be financed by tighter control of waste and public spending."

92% agreed with the second statement (the Conservative position); just 8% agreed with the first.

The Mail and Telegraph have both reacted very positively to yesterday's news.  Significantly, The Sun, too:

"At last, the Tories seem to be finding their voice. They have decided to put hard-working taxpayers first — and dump their daft promise to match Labour’s bloated spending... Labour seems ready to gamble the entire economy on a “cut now, pay tomorrow” burst of tax reductions financed by ever-higher borrowing. That is the economics of the madhouse."

Comments

[Jennifer Wells]

Brown will choke on his cornflakes when he reads The Sun describing his policies as the "economics of the madhouse"!

[Stop_Common_Purpose]

Nice to see the Tories appearing to return to a "traditional" Tory policy.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Good. It's interesting that your polls always seem to reflect mainstream activist thinking but the comments on your threads are quite different. I wonder how many of the people claiming to be Conservatives really are?
Now we are going to see how good our communications team really is. To get our point across our spokesmen need to be in the media all the time and we should be using our best batsmen (and only our best batsmen)to gety our message of responsibility and prudence across. It's not going to be an easy sell but it will be worth it in the end.
We should also be taking the fight to unfriendly media organisations. For example I've now heard Kevin Macguire on Radio 5 three times this week. No other journalist has been called on to review the papers.It may be that I've just been incredibly unlucky to have to listen to Kevin but I doubt it.

[John Coles]

Now the Conservatives must propose expenditure cuts - Regional Development Agencies, the Identity Card scheme, Government advertising (including NHS advertising), freeze QUANGO budgets, freeze Civil Service recruitment, reduce the Licence Fee to £100 - the list is endless and would fund a significant income tax cut.

[resident leftie]

Editor,

Do you have absolute figure for how happy they are? They are "more positive" but what is the baseline?

The CBI and the IoD agree with fiscal stimulus, as do the IMF, your Mr Lilico, the Chinese, the Americans, the Germans and many bankers. So I admire Cameron's bravery. The idea is that stimulating the economy sufficiently will increase GDP to mitigate the effects of the recession, and that growth (compared with no fiscal stimulus) will more than compensate for the cost of the borrowing.

I think The Sun has decided the Tories are going to win the next election, based on that editorial - otherwise they might have waited for the details of the policy.

[rugfish]

I agree with cuts in government spending to fund tax reductions. Right now WE should be making a "chopping list".

_____________________________________________

Quote:

Nice to see the Tories appearing to return to a "traditional" Tory policy.

Posted by: Stop_Common_Purpose | November 19, 2008 at 09:37

I agree Stop_Common_Purpose and I can't help noticing your name.
Common Purposes should be held to public scrutiny and a parliamentary inquiry should be ordered into its activities and into its funding which has mainly come indirectly through taxpayers.

It is one area of spending which should be cut immediately and its activities 'watched'.

[Teck]

Now we must persuade the public to understand clearly our message and get their support. Repeatedly.

And expose the fallacious arguments by Gordon Brown et al. Maintain reasoned attacks. No opportunity to be missed

The PM will dither over a 2009 general election, but we must be prepared for it.

[Curly]

The time is fast approaching to polarise politics and offer the public real change.

[sbjme19]

Malcolm at 0946:
I do agree with your comment about "comments". I read PBcom with many comments supportive of Tory policy announcements and switch over to Conhome to be greeted by "DC must go; sack Osborne" and the like!
Interesting and encouraging to read about the Sun.

[Matt Wright]

Right, now lets get stuck in and hard. This Govt has debased our country, undermined our pensions, overseen worsening education standards, rising unemployment, massive debt and presided over a culture of spin that blames everything on other people and takes no responsibility for its own actions. Another 5 years of this is not worth even contemplating. Our responsibility and duty is now to expose this Govt and beat them. Plain and simple. No stone should remain unturned and no second should be wasted in that fight.

[Paul Biggs]

Very good, but Cameron made a big mistake in the first place with a policy of matching Brown's tax and waste spending policies. Be clear - there is about £100 billion of annual government waste that can be cut without harming public services. Repeal of the ridiculous, unilateral 'climate bill' would save another £240 billion to 2050.

[resident leftie]

Posted by: Curly | November 19, 2008 at 10:04

The time is fast approaching to polarise politics and offer the public real change.

I couldn't agree more.

[Mark Fulford]

The time is fast approaching to polarise politics and offer the public real change.

I couldn't disagree more.

The gap between right and left got smaller when the left moved our way. It would be disastrous for us to concede the middle ground and shift to the right.

[Dorian Whistleblower]

'It's interesting that your polls always seem to reflect mainstream activist thinking but the comments on your threads are quite different. I wonder how many of the people claiming to be Conservatives really are?'

'Malcolm at 0946:
I do agree with your comment about "comments".'

As a disgruntled ConHomer I shall be posting a comprehensive list of all members on t'web immediately.

Then we can see, exactly, how many vicars, teachers, police officers and ballerinas support this odious regime.

Many employees of the BBC may well be in danger of being excommunicated.

Yes, I can sleep at night.

[David]

I agree that the "middle Ground" is still important, but the idea of cutting waste to fund tax cuts is no longer seen as extreme, having already been hijacked by the Libs.

Of course, the Libs and Labs will accuse us of "opportunism" over this and it does represent a u-turn or "flip flop".

Nevertheless it is good to see a foolish commitment abandoned and not a day too soon. A good PR team could put a positive spin on this move, but I fear the worst in view of our leaden-footed reaction to events of late weeks. Mandelson and Campbell will continue to run rings around us and the result of the election ( Spring 2009?) looks like a foregone conclusion.

Mr Cameron's welcome change of tack has come too late to save the day.

I hope he will not hang around too long after our fourth successive defeat next year. He will never be forgiven for so successfully snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

I will vote for David Davis, if he stands.

[Malcolm Dunn]

I sincerely doubt David [email protected] that you are a genuine Conservative member. In the unlikely event that you are,God help us.

[ACT]

Never mind how many people on these threads are in fact the Tories they claim to be, why exactly does Tim go on claiming "1,092 [Party] members" have told him anything? He has no idea whether they are Party members or not.

[Chris Howell]

The survey didn't really allow sensible answers in view of the circumstances.

All other things being equal in terms of policy, public spending is going up due to the recession and the effect on benefits. Tax revenues will reduce without additional specific tax cuts due to lower earnings of individuals and companies and lower consumer spending. So the default is that borrowing is ballooning, even without additional spending to boost the economy or tax cuts.

So what we need to focus on is the incontinent public spending of the past 10 years, that has seen the state expand its role vastly beyond its competence in all manner of areas, and pledge to cut back on this spending. The list of spending cut backs possible before needing to cut back on doctors, nurses, teachers and policement is vast, the public must now be prepared to believe us that it is possible to cut spending without hitting these emotive areas because it is patently obvious in so many areas. We just need to get on with it.

[Louise]

Malcolm, you are getting insulting and paranoid. Just because someone disagrees with the leadership and makes their feelings known publicly doesn't mean they are not loyal to the party. FWIW I voted pro these changes, though I agree with David they may again be too little too late. They might have had more impact if he had given us a few examples of where spending should rise more slowly. As it was he squirmed a bit on C4, which suggested to me he was nervous. As someone who knows how to read body-language, he was too awkward to be entirely confident.

I don't know whether you take it on yourself to moderate this thread so only "real members" can speak out, but people like you are exactly why I joined the Tories in the first place - to get away from people like that in the Labour Party. I enjoy internal debates in the party because people take notice of you, not launch a nasty witch-hunt.

Tim, can we have your verdict on this because it is getting irritating and upsetting.

[Teck]

We need to emphasize to the lay public that "cuts" do not equal cuts in services, and "attacking the government over policy" is not an assault on the public.

David Cameron must shout these -

# cutting waste in and by bureaucracy is good for services, and

# defeating the government over damaging policies is actually about saving the British public from destruction.

[Janet]

I agree with teck (13.45) Waste created by this government is not emphasised enough. Bliar demolished the Tories by repeating ad nauseam the lies he wanted to propogate about the Tories. Waste should be brought up at every opportunity. why can't 'Waste by Labour' be repeated and repeated. It is the root cause of all the financial problems imposed on us by Brown. It should also be pointed out that Brown does not seem to care that he is wasting so much through so many ways - fraud, bad negotiation of NHS purchasing, paying dole and child benefit to poles etc who have returned home, creating unnecessary jobs etc. He doesn't care after all it's our money not his. How about reiterating what Margaret Thatcher said It is not government money it is taxpayers money'.

[The Bishop Swine]

" Just because someone disagrees with the leadership and makes their feelings known publicly doesn't mean they are not loyal to the party"

I agree with this for the most part there are exceptions. Once a genral election is called it is time for all party members to sing from the same hymn book. Thats when it will become clar who are conservatives and who are Labour,lin-dem or UKIP plants.