The Conservatives must 'own the economic future'

ConservativeHome's strategic advice may be imperfect but we got some big calls right in the last year.

In ConHome's New Year editorial from 12 months ago I urged George Osborne to be less political and to focus on his Treasury brief.  A fortnight later we launched a campaign to encourage the Conservative leadership to abandon its pledge to match Labour's spending plans.  Without greater spending restraint we said there would be no room to deliver control of borrowing or economy-boosting tax relief.  In March we encouraged David Cameron to use his Spring Forum speech to tell voters that Britain was going in the wrong economic direction: "[Mr Cameron] needs to say that we're living beyond our means.  We're spending too much and borrowing too much.". Matthew Parris was urging the same change of tone: "The new Conservative language should be about waste, maladministration, extravagance, incompetence and drift. The new idea should be the need in hard times for rigour, severity and unsentimentality."  Our advice was spurned.  Instead the party continued on the path of what I called 'economic disarmament'; matching Labour on all big macroeconomic issues and gambling that the electorate had become what Oliver Letwin called 'sociocentric'.

Although ConHome didn't predict the scale of economic crisis our advice would have led the party to be much better positioned for the events that now dominate politics.  Instead the Tory frontbench were often left playing catch up - although George Osborne got the biggest call right - rejecting the idea of borrowing even more money to get Britain out of the deepest recession in the developed world.

Fortunately, Gordon Brown looks unlikely to call an early election and the deep bite of recession will steadily pull Labour lower and lower in public esteem.  As the election gets later voters will become less interested in ideas to tackle the recession and will become more interested in a greater economic vision.  If public spending control is the single biggest challenge facing an incoming Conservative government the larger priority is to own the economic future.

David Cameron and George Osborne must persuade the electorate that they are best placed to restore Britain to long-term economic health.  That task of persuasion has three ingredients:

1. Destroying Labour's reputation for economic competence. The scale of borrowing. The growth of dependency. The failure to undertake welfare reform during the years of plenty. Financial scandal. Regulatory failure. The collapse of sterling. The neglect of transport and energy infrastructure. The mis-selling of Britain's gold reserves. The plunder of the private pensions industry. As the ToryBear remix of George Osborne's PBR speech proclaimed: Labour has done it again.
2. Demonstrating Conservative answers to Britain's long-term economic challenges. The Tory frontbench has already done considerable work on British competitiveness. There's the Howe report on tax simplification. Michael Gove's thinking on science education. The Arculus review of regulation. The potential of the social reform agenda to reduce the long-term demands on government. Support for green technologies.  But things must now go much deeper. The Conservatives need to offer a lot more thinking on energy supply, in particular, and Britain's crumbling transport infrastructure.  The overall message: The Tories can renew UK plc again.
3. Presenting these messages in imaginative ways. And then there's the need to communicate (1) and (2) in much, more imaginative ways.  The party relies too much on speeches from David Cameron to communicate key ideas.  These have diminishing returns.  Alongside speeches the party needs YouTube-hosted documentaries, well-planned conferences with opinion-formers, campaigning websites, new advisory councils.  The alternative communication vehicles should be chosen to keep attention but also to communicate a depth of message and an openness to others' wisdom.

Tim Montgomerie

Comments

[Tanuki]

We could start by recruiting ToryBear to produce our next few PPBs.

[Jonathan K]

Conservative Home has given good advice over the last year.
Do the party talk to you much Tim?

[Tim Montgomerie]

No Jonathan if you mean on policy advice but the party is very good at briefing me on their thinking and including me in press circulars.

[snegchui]

Interesting question Jonathan K.
Point 3 is the key, because one of the things I find disappointing is that despite the glut of material to work with on pensions, transport and energy infrastructure, business taxation and regulation, vast expenditure in the public sector for little return, etc etc, shoulder-shrugging by Labour and mutterings of hysterical and do-nothing Tories seems to be sufficient to blunt discussion and reform. Punches are landing but they are not hurting at all.

[Rachel Joyce]

"Alongside speeches the party needs YouTube-hosted documentaries, well-planned conferences with opinion-formers, campaigning websites, new advisory councils."

I agree with you. In particular we seem to be vulnerable to the lie of being a do nothing party. Andrew Marr allowed Gordon Brown to say today that Conservatives want to let the recession run its course without contradicting him or challenging him. We need a rapid rebuttal unit as well as the above measures.

Some simple messages are needed about a caring party on:
debt - national and personal
businesses and how to help them
trade deficit
unbalanced economy
waste
regulation
unemployment and welfare reform

as well as all our other work on the family, social justice etc.

These need to be condensed into campaigning websites, youtube etc as you suggest, Tim.

[Jack Stone]

What the party needs on the economy is some policies. All we hear is what the leadership is against not what there for. Its because of this lack of policies that Gordon Brown can say the party is the do nothing party as when you don`t really have solutions to the problems the country faces that is exactly what you are.

[Councillor]

Gordon's "do-nothing tories" is working well because the party is still communicating zilch.

The abandonment of matching Labour's spending plans came far too late. Our front bench gives every impression of drifting around, reacting to events. They show little sign of knowing what to and don't look much interested in doing anything.

The country is going to hell in a handcart and the tories seem to be just watching it happen. Very sad.

The country needs some leadership. Where is the opposition?

[James Maskell]

Its not a lack of policies that is the problem. Its communicating them. I thought the slogan for the last Conference was all about having a plan for change. If such a plan exists then for Gods sake communicate it.

The Conservatives are far too tentative. If they have policies (and I know they do) they should actually go out and push them.

[Adam in London]

The first step is something no-one anywhere within the political establishment or media has managed so far: a proper diagnosis of what went wrong.

Only in light of such a diagnosis can any long-term policy be developed. Currently, the emphasis has (understandably) been on immediate relief - eg interest rate cuts, and government underwriting loans.

With any diagnosis it also becomes clear that policy ought not to aim to restore the economy to where it was in 2006 (that would be to doom us to a repeat crisis). Therefore the question becomes what refashioning of the economy need to take place, and what can be done to undertake such a refashioning. So far too much discourse has assumed that all we want to do is dole out cash (eg in tax cuts) to boost demand and get people spending again (reinflating the asset bubbles).

[Malcolm Stevas]

James Maskell:
"The Conservatives are far too tentative."
Or perhaps "pragmatic, reactive, opportunist, windy" better describes them?
"If they have policies (and I know they do) they should actually go out and push them."
Not all of us, indeed not many people at all I imagine, are quite so ingenuous as to be swayed by opportunistic policy-invention on the hoof, sort of pulling political rabbits from hats. More than a few of us are in fact less interested in "policies" than in fundamental principles, as is indicated by that other thread to do with Conservativism, and the fact that so many seem to think vaguely worthy soundbites such as "family values" (what they? Ed) are the same as principles does not detract from the profound importance of the latter. I'm still waiting to hear a senior Tory state credibly that he believes in political liberty and to prove this will guarantee to attack the statute books & the Treasury with a chainsaw, when in office... Otherwise, for many of us there is little point in voting Tory instead of the Monster Raving Loonies.

[David Belchamber]

ConHome did get some big calls absolutely right in 2008 and I am sure that the conservatives would now substantially widen the gap in the polls if they used your resume, Tim, as the core for their manifesto.

I am though devastated by your reply at 16.52 to Jonathan K's simple and direct question.

Only a few days ago I was questioning whether any of the opinions we express have any impact on CCHQ or the shadow cabinet. Apart from the silly postings, there is a great deal of practical experience and common sense expressed on ConHome and it is a shame that the party does not tap into it.

I know that people like me frequently criticise but we do so as critical friends, not opponents, and I contend that the shifts in policy that you mention have often been our stated view for some time previously.

Together we can win, but if the party disdains our - considered - views, it wastes a very valuable reource.

[David Belchamber]

Adam in London at 18.02:

"The first step is something no-one anywhere within the political establishment or media has managed so far: a proper diagnosis of what went wrong".

How very right; "Problems are solutions in disguise". If we just thought a bit and analysed the problems that confront us, the solutions, in many instances, would float to the surface.

Quite apart from suggesting a positive course of action to take to remedy the situation, analysis of the causes of the recession would also highlight Gordon Brown's culpability in getting this country into a far worse mess than it should have been.

[Councillor]

"Currently, the emphasis has (understandably) been on immediate relief"

Why? This has just resulted in throwing money at the problem, creating a massive problem for the future with little current benefit.
Leadership means looking to the future.

[Saltmaker]

"Problems are solutions in disguise".

Yes, David, we really need to push the envelope and think big, -- in the blue sky; well outside the box -- with 360-degree feedback so that, by the close of play, the low hanging fruit are ours. ;-)

[Steve Tierney]

At the Tory conference I picked up a book called 'The Plan' by Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan.

In it they set out twelve steps to 'renew Britain'.

I've finally got around to reading it and I'm very, very impressed.

I can't say that I agree with the people here who are saying we have "no policies", but I do worry that we aren't anywhere near radical enough to deal with the true depth of the economic hole we are in.

I'd love to see a great many of the ideas in the book implemented. Really well-thought out, clever stuff.

Of course, it remains possible we'll be much more radical once we are elected. I suspect we will need to be to fix the Big "Brown" Mess we'll inherit.

[John Moss]

From this week we get access to Civil Servants to assist us in developing policy in detail against the actual position of the Government finances, etc. It would have been totally irresponsible to announce any detailed policies until we had had the opportunity to let the Civil Service see them and point out the pit - and pratt - falls waiting for us.

We also get access to the true figures behind the Government's spin. I expect some horror stories to lurk in there which may well be Brown's plan. Leave us a mess to sort out, painfully, then ride back in after the worst is over. We must not let that happen.

To quote a friend in local Government - who was once in a Labour/Tory coalition! - "get the sh!t on the table, early".

Our "Office of Budget Responsibility" ought to produce an accurate set of accounts in the form of a profit and loss and balance sheet, with nothing "off-balance sheet" at all. Show the true, parlous state of our finances and get that in to the public domain, let them see how bad it is, then get to work to sort it out.

It will be blood, sweat and tears, but if we are honest, open and up-front with people, we will gain their respect, hopefully their trust and, however much it hurts, their votes, as we get on with the job of re-building our country after yet another financial disaster wrought upon us by Labour.

[Matt Wright]

I actually think there are quite a few good policy ideas floating around although as one would expect the really meaty ones are still to come. However I think the issue with such national party positioning is the theme that holds the ideas together and 2 or 3 simple messages. Its worth getting those carefully worked out and then banged out all the time by everyone.

[Matthew Reynolds]

No wonder our poll lead is too narrow and that Mr Cameron will be going for a big shadow cabinet reshuffle.

Rifkind, Redwood , Clarke , Davis and Duncan-Smith are far too effective politicians to be excluded from the front-bench while losers like Spelman, May , Ainsworth , Mitchell , Lansley , Willetts , Duncan and Maude plus David Mundell the most pointless Shadow Scottish Secretary ever upsets the Party North of the Border occupy the front bench.

We need a smaller shadow cabinet with more talented people in it so that we can react quicker and with more clinical accuracy. We need clever types who can solve the socialist created problems developed by Gordon Brown since 1997 rather than charisma free Blairites who mouth platitudes.

Justine Greening could sell a positive view of our agenda on global poverty at the overseas aid brief. Angela Watkinson is a hardworking type who knows a lot about NHS reform ( having written a booklet with John Redwood & having been a Public Services Shadow Minister )- could she be worse as Shadow Health Secretary than Mr Lansley ?

The Tories must start selling a coherent narrative to the voters about why we are the Party to be trusted with the UK's renewal. We must 'own the future ' so to speak. I am bored to tears with the invisible people in the Shadow Cabinet who have not got a clue about a) the need for radicalism to rescue our country from this disaster & b) how to counter Labor lies & explain our agenda to the electors.

On the end of the 10p tax band & basic tax rate being cut by 2p to 20p and the 2.5% VAT reduction we savaged Labor but then failed to offer an alternative. Whatever you might think about those policies they where substantial changes to our tax system and one cannot oppose something with nothing. We cannot carp on about the governments failings without saying how we would do better. Otherwise we risk making Labor look tough while we look full of spin & fury signifying nothing.

The Tax Payer Alliance points to £100 billion p/a of state sector waste. How about checking the TPA figures and then getting The Center For Policy Studies & Adam Smith Institute to devise the reforms to eliminate that over-spending ASAP ?

This would pave the way for big cuts in the budget deficit on the back of the end of the Brown built client state and thus tax cuts vital for future economic success could be affordable. Taxes are too high already as all the economic evidence shows - so merely pledging to stop anymore is inadequate.

Voters want change - why are our slow witted shadow cabinet so out of touch with the sea change in public attitudes on lower taxes ?

The lower paid & coping classes feel overtaxed and are cross about government wastage - wake up Tories & smell the coffee !

[Goldie]

Amen, brother Tim. Very well done. I agree with every word.

In a way it's fair: I am absolutely convinced that either Cameron and Osborne get this right - and then they'll be PM and Chancellor. But if they fail, and they very well might, they won't be.

[Tel]

As a Tory I desperately want the Tories to WIN the next election and would personally vote for them with the shadow cabinet in it's current form. However I recognise that most of the electorate will not. When is this website going to acknowledge that if we have Osborne as shadow chancellor we will lose the next election? We have no coherent economic message and Brown is getting away with the disaster that he created and presided over. Osborne maybe a genius nobody knows. He has never had a proper job and does not have the gravitas for chancellor and the sooner Cameron faces up to this the better. Look at Obama he is inexperienced but countered the Republican attack by surrounding himself with very experienced people.

Cameron needs to look in the mirror and ask himself what is more important keeping Osborne as shadow chancellor or winning the next election. It is not just Cameron's ambition of ever becoming Prime Minister that is on the line it's the chance of this country ever having another Tory government. And yes it is that serious because if Labour win another term destruction of the Conservative part will be their sole aim. Think Lib-Lab pact with PR thrown in for good measure.

[Tel]

As a Tory I desperately want the Tories to WIN the next election and would personally vote for them with the shadow cabinet in it's current form. However I recognise that most of the electorate will not. When is this website going to acknowledge that if we have Osborne as shadow chancellor we will lose the next election? We have no coherent economic message and Brown is getting away with the disaster that he created and presided over. Osborne maybe a genius nobody knows. He has never had a proper job and does not have the gravitas for chancellor and the sooner Cameron faces up to this the better. Look at Obama he is inexperienced but countered the Republican attack by surrounding himself with very experienced people.

Cameron needs to look in the mirror and ask himself what is more important keeping Osborne as shadow chancellor or winning the next election. It is not just Cameron's ambition of ever becoming Prime Minister that is on the line it's the chance of this country ever having another Tory government. And yes it is that serious because if Labour win another term destruction of the Conservative part will be their sole aim. Think Lib-Lab pact with PR thrown in for good measure.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Don't diisagree with your post Tim but I'd be careful about boasting if I were you. I was also sorry to hear that the leadership don't talk to you very often.
They don't have to take your advice but they should listen to it.

[Deborah]

Like Steve Tiernay, I got around to reading 'The Plan' by Douglas Carswell and Dan Hannan over Christmas too.
Excellent stuff.
All that's needed is some real leadership and the political will to implement.

[Super Blue]

We have good economic policies - inheritance tax reform, council tax freezing, income tax reductions and a good few expenditures to cancel - ID cards for one - to stop borrowing so much. Who could argue - except a troll.

We announce them frequently in the written and broadcast media. So far, so good.

Every time we announce them, some minister like Photoshop Purnell, Caroline "You know" Flint is given a right of reply and the media story is not our policy but their comment on our policy.

Policy is not a problem, announcing it is not a problem but news management is. This is due to Mandelson coming back - alJabeeba love him for some reason - and Draper running his trolls. Brown's Clowns are given a free ride by out-of-their-depth or sympathetic presenters.

[Cllr Richard Willis]

Absolutely right! I agree with the main article. I have put a piece about the VAT Trick on my blog here: http://richardwillisuk.wordpress.com

[Tapestry]

Until the Party stops complying with the national dislike of business and businessmen, it is wasting its time. Small businesses create jobs. Until the Conservatives champion enterprise on the micro-scale and publicly back business, it might as well whistle in the wind.

The recovery lies not in the hands of spending politicians who think that they are the key players. It lies in the hands of the small guy having a go, who is currently down-trodden by regulations and taxes. Until the Party rediscovers the meaning of enterprise and the importance of it to society, people might as well keep voting labour. The country will end up as a banana republic but at least it will not be wasting its time with false solutions by voting for a Conservative Party that has given up on backing business.

[Richard]

The county needs to wake up from its apathy,Brown has no plan B.

He borrowed to inject money into Public Service's we can argue the rights & wrongs of this,what i believe can not be argued is raising tax's to record levels at the same time,not using that to put the Public Financies in good shape,just more binge-spending.that i believe is the most personnal and best attack anyone can make on Brown.

The Germans know all to well,in 2007 they put up VAT some 3%,not to go on a spending spree,to put their financial house in order,IN THE GOOD TIMES.

CHECK OUT GERMAN UNEMPLOYEMNT,IT IS FALLING!!!,THEY GO INTO RECESSION AT THE DROP OF A HAT BECAUSE 50% OF GDP IS EXPORTS,BUT DOMESTICALLY THEY ARE WHERE WE WERE IN 2001,WHY DIDN'T WE LEARN THOSE LESSONS,INSTEAD WE DID THE EXACT OPPOSITE,OF WHAT HAD KEPT US THE ONLY G7 NATION NOT TO GO IN RECESSION AFTER 9/11 WILL THE LEFT EVER LEARN?

[Richard]

I am somewhat annoyed by the Tories attack however,it is comman fiscal knowlege,that USA goes into recession every 7 yrs on average,in 2001,if was a fair chance that in 2008,USA would be in recession,and here we are.

Brown,has been of a record borrowng binge since 2002,the Conservative have him bang-to-right,if only they could attack him in a way that would make the average person,understand his incompatence.

[Tim Montgomerie]

I'm sorry if my post came over as boasting Malcolm. It is frustrating to see so much advice over the last year ignored - from me and many others.

[Tapestry]

Brown is borrowing GBP 157 billion this year that is if he can raise it. His losses on bank shares are already in the tens of billions.

His whole plan is based on a recovery during H2 2009, which seems to be wishful thinking. The willingness of foreigners to buy Sterling and bank with Brown is going to run out before long. He is a loser and has made Britain into a losing country from the winning country he inherited in 1997. The IMF will not have enough funds to help him. It's going to be a monumental fiasco with Sterling on par with the US$.

Conservatives need to point out that Brown has blown it on the vast scale without adding to the doom and gloom, and then point out that the only way out of the whole Brown has dug is to get business back into gear, and government in check.

Any talk of taking on Brownian economic programmes will be political suicide. Just tell it like it is, and events will soon move Brown into the doghouse from which he will never recover.

[Michael Doyle]

The most effective electoral campaigns are based around negative attacks on the opponents.

Its essential to remind voters of the stuff-ups and hypocrisy of Blair-Brown. Use ridicule and irony. Use sarcasm and mockery. Lay it on with a trowel. But , whatever you do, keep reminding the voters of how badly off they are and of the hardships that they (and their children and grandparents and themselves) now have to endure. Yes, remind them of *why* that has happened (Blair-Brown mis-government) … but don’t over-analyse.

Policies ? I wouldn’t go into great detail until the election is called. Make the point that you don’t yet have access to the vast amount of data available to the Government of the day (and point out that Brown’s minions are not exactly making the most of that data anyway).

Remind people that Conservatives do have a social conscience … and that they want to ensure that there are funds available to effectively assist the genuinely needy. Remind people that the Conservatives are the Party of economic management. Remind them that under the Conservatives people have greater opportunities to improve themselves, feel more secure and are more confident about their future.

[Matt Wright]

They key is just as much about what we do to solve current problems as what we do to be in a good position when the recession ends. The big problem is that Brown gave himself no leeway and all the extra spending on top of the problems with a mis-balanced economy means that we could be weak trying to come out of the recession. Other countries could well be in a good position to secure markets coming out of the recession. Brown has sold us out now and sold out our kids as well.