Highlights of George Osborne's speech to the Cheltenham Spring Forum

Labour has run out of ideas: "They have run out of ideas. The economy is on its knees, enterprise is suffocated, we’re falling behind in the race to the future. And what is there proposal? A return to the 1970s with a 50% top rate of tax. With the dishonesty of trying to present a £2 billion tax rise on the wealthy as the answer to a £200 billion borrowing requirement. So out goes all that New Labour talk of ‘aspiration’ and ‘opportunity’ and owning the centre ground. In comes all that Old Labour language of ‘soak the rich’ and ‘make the pips squeak’. We will look back at this time and realise that we were hearing the last, sour notes of a requiem mass. New Labour. Born 1994. Died April 22nd 2009. Private funeral. Don’t send flowers."

Labour have taxed dishonestly: "Our priority must be to stop the tax rises on the many not just the few. Perhaps we should not be surprised that the great New Labour experiment ended like this. It was always built on an economic lie. The lie that you could go on increasing spending faster than your economy was growing, and never have to pay for it. At first, they promised there would be ‘no tax increases at all’. Then they turned to stealth taxes, like the tax raid that did so much damage to pensions. After that they tried stealth spending through PFI. And still it was not enough. So they sold our gold at a record low, and then they started to borrow when our economy was on a high. They borrowed and they borrowed, and they never stopped. They should have fixed the roof while the sun was shining. Instead they stored up debts that will take a generation to pay off."

Conservatives were right on the fiscal stimulus: "Last autumn, I stood before you at our Party Conference and I told you that the cupboard was bare. It’s worse than I thought. The cupboard itself is about to taken away by the bailiffs. The public finances are out of control and that presents a clear and present danger to the prosperity of an entire generation. We must act and act fast. We need a government of thrift in this age of austerity. David Cameron and I have earned the right to be heard on this. It wasn’t easy standing up and telling the public that the country could not afford Labour’s temporary VAT cut, but we did it and we did it almost alone. And it wasn’t easy standing up and telling some people in this party that sound money is the only route to real tax cuts – but we did that too."

Philip Hammond will be one of the most powerful members of a Cameron government: "Gordon Brown downgraded the job of Chief Secretary and removed from his Cabinet colleagues their right to be involved in the overall spending decisions of government. I want our Chief Secretary, Philip Hammond, the star of this week’s Question Time, to be one of the most powerful members of the government. I want my colleagues in Cabinet to be collectively responsible for the spending decisions we take. They won’t be the representatives of their departments in the Cabinet, they will be the representatives of the Cabinet in their departments."  Yesterday's ConHome survey of members found Philip Hammond rising steadily up the shadow cabinet league table.

Conservatives will be more specific about how we'll fix things but only when the time is right: "given how dramatically the borrowing forecasts have deteriorated and how fast this last Budget has unraveled, I ask how sensible would it be to write that 2010 Budget now? Yes, we will give specifics. Yes, we will seek a mandate. But we will take our time and get it right – because we can see today with this government what happens when you get it wrong."

Comments

[Tony Makara]

I do so hope Conservative cabinets are going to be made up of real talent and real people too who will hold policy up to scrutiny. Over the last few years ministerial office has been devalued with the rise of nonentities like James Purnell and Caroline Flint. People who we know have arrived at their station more through grovel than graft. Philip Hammond is certainly the sort of character who would add gravitas and intellect to any cabinet.

This is defnitely a speech aimed at setting a tone for future policy. A strategy aimed at restoring our public finances to health and ending the culture of profligacy. It is a touch speech for tough times with a touch message. We can't spend what we don't have and we have to cut our cloth accordingly.

Good stuff Mr Osborne.

[Anthony Scholefield]

The time to be specific is now.

What is needed is a policy programme to avoid future borrowing and thus digging deeper into the hole.

The Tories should propose an alternative budget which will bring the public deficit into balance within a year or so-that must include cuts in public sector wages and pensions as well as closing down whole areas of spending.There must be cash limits on all areas of government taking spending back to 2006 figures.Speeches must be based on rigorous intellectual analysis and proposals for action.Quite clearly, Osborne's speech advocating massive spending increases in 2007 was based on nothing except tactics,otherwise when things went wrong he would have been able to puiblish the basis on which he made his promises.
Finally ,once the intellectual base was laid it is time for a vote of no confidence.

[David Galea]

What I love is how they carefully listen to criticism and act on it sensibly. Contrast that with the Blair/Brown years!

[James Burdett]

The absolutely last thing that the Conservatives should do is produce an altera-budget. It would be politically suicidal and when Labour is ensuring that the fiscal goalposts are moving almost daily it wouldn't make much economic sense either.

[The Bishop Swine]

We need only state the figures correctly and point to the first round of cuts that must come. We cannot expect the public to support vague notions. That is a recipe for nu-labour to whip up fear.

[UKIP Campaigner]

COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

IF YOU WANT TO ENGAGE CONSTRUCTIVELY WITH THE TOPIC UNDER DISCUSSION YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOME BUT THESE PAGES DO NOT EXIST FOR UKIP TO BROADCAST MESSAGES.

[Working Class Tory]

Don't take this as broadcast for personal gain, but I blogged on Philip Hammond here, and it was on Iain Dale's Daley Dozen on Saturday evening.

He will be very important indeed.

http://www.workingclasstory.com/2009/04/philip-hammond-mp.html