David Cameron: Sometimes I want to shake the Prime Minister

David Cameron used an interview with the Today programme to say that he sometimes wanted to shake the Prime Minister because he believes he is wasting money on the VAT cut and should be guaranteeing bank lending to small businesses that are starved of credit.

Mr Cameron said Britain was facing two big problems (not verbatim):

• A debt crisis: Britain is spending more as a percentage of our national income than when Denis Healey was Chancellor and Britain went bust. The answer to a debt crisis cannot be more borrowing and that is why the VAT cut was such a "criminal" waste of money. Every shop in the real world is cutting prices by 10%, 20%, sometimes even more. The £12bn Labour spent on the VAT cut might as well have been burnt, Mr Cameron said. Mr Brown gives the impression of not caring what mess he leaves behind.
• A credit crunch: Over Christmas I met business after business who cannot get credit from their banks.- That is why we need the guarantee scheme that Conservatives proposed some time ago.

During the interview the Conservative leader resisted Labour's attack line that the Conservatives are the do nothing party:

• We just want the right things done, he protested. We want monetary activism.
• In the long-term the British economy needs more saving, more green industries and more manufacturing capacity relative to finance.
• He said that the Conservatives were not anti the state. We believe in an expanded NHS, he said, and in state education but we don't want to be constantly expanding the state. By having a focused state we can be better at the things that we do do.

In a speech at noon Mr Cameron is expected to announce help for savers.  This morning's FT also reports that the Conservatives are planning a range of measures to help green businesses.  Under a 'green incubators' scheme every £150,000 of private sector investment in environmental business could win up to four times as much public sector subsidy.

Comments

[Cleethorpes Rock]

"Under a 'green incubators' scheme every £150,000 of private sector investment in environmental business could win up to four times as much public sector subsidy."

A nice idea in theory, but I can see a plethora or businesses with tenuous environmental links being set up as front companies in order to win the subsidy. In any case, the "climate change" arguments are unravelling and why shouldn't other businesses receive such a subsidy too?

[Sally Roberts]

I am planning to attend this speech later this morning and look forward to hearing some good positive stuff. I'll report back with my thoughts later.

[Vincent Wall]

Cleethorpes Rock is right to be worried.

Such a level of 4 to 1 subsidy will distort the market and encourage investment in very dubious environmental schemes.

[Malcolm Dunn]

If Cameron is worried about the party being seen as a one man band why is he giving this speech and not Osborne?

[Michael McGough]

Surely the Government is already guaranteeing lending to business in the proportion that the banks are nationalised .
Personally I too would like to shake Brown's head,together with Cameron's.

[Graeme Pirie]

Environmental "subsidy".

What rubbish, the "right" thing to do will also be the cheapest because most people will want the service.

How can you in one breath talk about stopping the state expansion whilst expanding the state through "subsidies". Where does he thing the money for these give-aways come from? Increased taxes.

[Letters From A Tory]

Glad to hear that the Conservatives are going to announce help for savers, as the PM has already indicated that this year's Budget will help them too.

The Conservatives must make sure that they beat Labour to the policy headlines if they want to shake the tag of the 'do nothing' party.

[Paul Biggs]

I'd like to shake David Cameron every day for embracing carbon-climate-claptrap!

[Graeme Pirie]

Environmental "subsidy".

What rubbish, the "right" thing to do will also be the cheapest because most people will want the service.

How can you in one breath talk about stopping the state expansion whilst expanding the state through "subsidies". Where does he thing the money for these give-aways come from? Increased taxes.

[Peter Watson]

That will really scare Gordon. Suggest you understand that Britain is a fascist State and put a real leader in the Conservative Party. Cameron is weak weak weak.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/philipjohnston/4109358/Why-is-Labour-so-keen-to-imprison-us.html

[Angelo Basu]

"What rubbish, the "right" thing to do will also be the cheapest because most people will want the service."

In the long run, yes, but new technologies tend not to be the cheapest at the start for many very obvious reasons (absence of economies of scale, need to recoup up-front investment costs, consumer inertia, need to demonstrate effectiveness, need to build awareness of product and its advantages over existing products etc). These can be discounted in a vibrant economy where there are lots of VCs and Angels looking to provide speculative investment without needing a high probability of short-term return (they can hunt "black swans"). When cash is tight consumers and investors become much more short-termist and risk-averse.

Perhaps that means that the state should also become short-term in its outlook, but that's a very different thing to saying that the market would provide anyway.

[graham wood]

DC says: "The £12bn Labour spent on the VAT cut might as well have been burnt"

Ho Ho! But he conveniently forgets the mind boggling £55 Billion we pay to the corrupt, unaccountable, unelected and unelectable, bureaucracy known as the European Union. This too might just as well go on the same bonfire for all the good it does to the British economy.

(£10.2 Billion membership fee, and £45 Billion conservative estimate of the cost of mandatory EU "directives and regulation on British business)
Charity begins at home Mr Cameron!

[Howard A Ward]

The two previous commentators are right to be worried about the potential waste of tax payer’s money by encouraging dubious ‘green’ schemes and it is true that many of the OTT Green arguments are unravelling. However, it has to be remembered that environmental schemes and renewal energy are internationally fashionable and will remain so for some time. We can be very sniffy about fashion but it should not be forgotten that it is a very powerful driver of new business opportunities. Therefore, these industries represent a growing business opportunity; a sun rise rather than a sun set industry. One which British industry with the support of a responsible British government needs to fully exploit, whilst being very careful not to fall into the trap of throwing tax payers money at poor schemes. Not easy but we need to do it and we can do it very much more competently than the present government.

[Cleethorpes Rock]

graham wood is right. Now add to the fact that because Labour have destroyed Sterling, our contributions for next year are even greater because they are calculated in Euros.

Darling Alistair used an exchange rate of Euro1.4 to calculate our subs, so that should give you an idea of the scale of the mess.

Why doesn't Dave propose withholding our subs until certain conditions are met? (though obviously we'd be Better Off Out, but it's a start)

[Mark Fulford]

Gosh, this one’s rattled the climate-change deniers and EU-is-evil brigade.

I’ve got a great investment opportunity for you (since it’s so hard to get a return on your hard-earned savings)… go and invest in a Scottish ski-resort. You’ve got a triple benefit of supporting the union (I mean the British one, not the foul EU one), supporting British business and – on climate change - putting your money where your mouth is.

[The Bishops Wife]

Sometimes I feel like shaking Osborne. This speech should have been delivered by GO. Why is it that Cameron is having to make all of the key note speech’s. Is it because the rest of his shadow cabinet is far to busy working on their outside interest’s? If we had Ten Cameron’s we would be in with a fighting chance of winning the next election. For a short while GO was performing as well as he needs to but frankly he seems to have gone back to sleep. So If I was Cameron it would be Osborne who would be getting a good shake right now.

[P Otis Williams]

1 As the private sector makes ever greater sacrifices in terms of employment, pay and pensions, halt the public sector's runaway gravy train. Does Haringey Council really need an Equalities Officer (salary: £38,000-£41,000), the job description for which states: "You do not need to be an equalities expert"?

KILL THE STATE DAVE

[Steve Foley]

"I'd like to shake David Cameron every day for embracing carbon-climate-claptrap!"

Posted by: Paul Biggs | January 05, 2009 at 09:50

So would I Paul, so would I!

I have just listened to it and I cannot politely say on a Forum such as this what I really think of this torrent of faeces!

Did Zac Goldsmith write this for him? Far too much Greenery! Green Incubators indeed! It would be better to set up proper Customs free Enterprise Zones around major Ports and Airports, or has that one been tried before?

The rest of the speech was "Mom and Apple Pie" as the Yanks would say and the sort of touchy-feely waffle I would expect from Nick Clegg and the Lib-Dems. I bet Brown and Darling are shaking in their shoes WITH LAUGHTER!

Even the idea of scrapping tax on savings for those on standard rate Income Tax could have unintended consequences as those with bigger incomes and thus able to make significant savings may well move them elsewhere if they are to be taxed on the interest therefrom and those on lower, or average incomes such as myself, can just about make ends meet and do not have a surplus to save. Furthermore we should be encouraging people to spend to revitalise the Retail Sector not leave the money dead at low interest rates.

I hate to say this but if he goes on as he is I can see Cameron snatching defeat from the jaws of victory at the next General Election, as voters decide that they are as well sticking with the Devil they Know. The balmy days of Crewe and Nantwich are over it would seem but we will not really know until this year's Local Elections unless a convenient Parliamentary By-Election occurs in a marginal seat.

[Sandy Lovatt]

Does anyone of any consequence read these blogs? By that I mean anyone who is likely to have the slightest influence on Conservative Party policy and strategy. Personally I doubt it but just in case, this is what I think.

The bursting of the bubble and the attendant banking crisis has caused the demand curve in the economy to move to the left, which will lead to lower production and hence increased unemployment. This is what is underlying the collapse in consumer confidence. Propping up the banks and supporting lending to businesses and households is all very well, but unless demand is increased there will be no cash flow to service these debts.

Neither Labour nor the Conservatives seem to have latched onto this. They both seem to be intent on applying sticking plasters to a gaping wound instead of trying to stop the bleeding.

Because of the failure last summer by all political parties to come up with solutions to the other half of the recession problem, the restoration of demand, we are I fear now in for a very long haul out of this mess.

[John Prendergast]

Won't any body get DC, Zac Goldbrick, and Gideon Osbourn off this Green Al Gore clap trap? While we are about it, scrap the Met Office and hang them.

If Conservatives blow the whistle on the GW fraud and hold Brown to account for windmill fraud and others with guaranteed empeachment, then Tories will be in power for half a Century.

The mess Labour has made in only 11 years will take 50 to unravel.

[Bill]

Dave is so masterful, isn't he not. I

[Sally Roberts]

No Steve - it WAS actually good stuff (though I did think of you when he mentioned the "green" stuff - which was not actually the main thrust of the speech even though posters here seem to think it was).
The fact is that the economy is currently logjammed and the fact is that it will take a Loan Guarantee Scheme to get the banks lending and the credit flowing again to our small and medium-sized businesses. The economy is stagnant and this morning's speech was a very refreshing and positive experience. Some of you people should have been there!

[C List and Proud]

OOPs, subsidy going to the wrong place again.

The Governemet will already give home owners and businesses small grants towards installing green kit, but they wont give grants to people who actually build homes and offices.

The homeowners and some businesses pay VAT on their solar panels etc, so the "grant" really only gets you your tax back - a sort of, take with one hand and give it back with another, scheme.

What is needed is a growth in the market for this kit, so the investment is made and costs reduced so it becomes cost effective and as such needs no further subsidy. Subsidising the producers is wrong. Subsidising the major buyers is the way to stimulate this market and if we still had housebuilders building anything, that is where the subsidy shoud go.

[Sarf Lunnon]

A couple of years ago a renewable energy consultant (a proper, knowledgeable one) remarked to me that 'all the guys who were in double glazing have moved into wind turbines'. Did DC buy his from a former double glazing salesman?

[Graham Spade]

Bill said :
"Dave is so masterful, isn't he not."

Is the double negative deliberate?

[Paul Biggs]

What is a 'green industry?' Is it something that is subsidised by taxpayers' in order to produce white elephants, surrounded by dead birds and bats, known as 'wind turbines?' This nonsense already add 14% to our electricity bills - not something that will dent Cameron's £30 million fortune, or Zac Goldsmith's billions. Too many rich MPs and ministers are insulated from the real world effects of fatally flawed 'climate' or 'environ-mental' policies by their wealth.

[Jack Stone]

Sally. Cameron is just coming out with stuff that the party as proposed before. Hague stood on a platform of abolishing taxes on savings. This is not about new policies for today and tomorrow this is just the Conservative party reverting to type and starting to put forward another right-wing agenda.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Right Jack. The people who are going to benefit most are basic rate tax pensioners.Presumably you don't care a jot for these people even though they have been the biggest victims of the credit crunch. You clearly have no idea at all what you're talking about. You really would be so much better off in the Labour party assuming that is, that you're not already in it.

[Jack Stone]

The thing we need to hear from the party spokesmen is how do they think we can get out of the recession. It seems to me that is not being addressed. They are not addressing how to save jobs and create new ones that will be lost by the recession.
I am all for helping pensioners but the party are not really addressing the issue and that is the recession.

[Julian L Hawksworth]

"I am all for helping pensioners but the party are not really addressing the issue and that is the recession", says Jack Stone.

Wrong. Firstly, what about the Loan Guarantee Scheme? Then, there is the recommendation of freezing Council Tax levels for a year.

Furthermore, the Conservatives recognise that our current level of debt is simply unsustainable. In contrast, Labour seem determined to ensure that our country has a higher level of debt than any other nation in the developed world. The recent cut in VAT was inconsequential.

[Julian L Hawksworth]

"I am all for helping pensioners but the party are not really addressing the issue and that is the recession", says Jack Stone.

Wrong. Firstly, what about the Loan Guarantee Scheme? Then, there is the recommendation that Council Tax levels should be frozen for a year.

Furthermore, the Conservatives recognise that our current level of debt is simply unsustainable. In contrast, Labour seem determined to ensure that our country has a higher level of debt than any other nation in the developed world. The recent cut in VAT was inconsequential.

[the bishop Swine]

Freezing Coucil tax for a year is a step in the right direction, but its not getting rid of this unfair tax now is it?

[Julian L Hawksworth]

A fair point, "the bishop Swine". But what would you replace it with, may I ask?

[Super Blue]

Many of us would like to grasp Troll-Stone warmly ............... by the throat, for writing such illiterate rubbish.
If it is "right-wing" to want to lower taxes for lower-paid people, and reduce unnecessary expenditure to fund them at least twice over then I am right-wing. On that basis, so is America's President-elect, whose name you still can't spell.

[Julian L Hawksworth]

Those on the left like to associate "right-wing" with extremism or an uncaring attitude. Another myth which they enjoy, is suggesting that Conservatives are from a so-called "nasty party".

The left often claim to be advocates of both individualism and democracy. In reality, they prefer centralisation and to generalise about people's needs. They also regard the electorate as children.