Should the NHS, defence and international development be Tory spending priorities? How should Conservatives fight the BNP? Does Ann Widdecombe deserve a seat in the House of Lords?

These and other questions are waiting for your answers in the regular ConservativeHome survey.

Click here to have your say.

Comments

[Richard]

When it came to reviewing members of the Shadow Cabinet, yet again I had to select "don't know" for most of them as I hardly see any of them in the papers or on the television news, you don't even hear them on the wireless. This is a very sad state of affairs that needs changing now!

[RuralTrueBlue]

Q5. Or, should we stick to Conservative principles or be hypocrites and bend to suit the mood.

Q11. Adopting personal attacks would be counter productive; why not just fight them on policy?

Spending must be cut. What does a business do when it suffers a downturn? Invest huge sums in support and R&D or reduce its cost base?

Rid government and all its agencies of 'management consultants'; why does it need them? Are not civil servants up to it? If not, fire them!

Get rid of quangoes, especially the RDAs.

On MP expenses; what people would find acceptable is if MPs were treated in th same way as ordinary working people, then there is no argument. Setting themselves above everybody else with massive persona allowances and so forth has alienated the electorate.

[Cleethorpes Rock]

I hope people give Sayeeda Warsi more credit this time; she has been a good performer and will surely play a big part in the election campaign.

[Cassie Blueman]

The Conservatives can fight the BNP by calling the Referendum on the Lisbon Treaty which was promised by them and the other main EU-colluding parties.

[Teck]

Outsourcing, privatisation, systemic failures and poor management have been hugely costly to the NHS.

Our NHS is over-bureaucratised so the focus is not to pour money indiscriminately but to visit every area of waste, inefficiency and superfluous activity.

[Martin Wright]

One of the problems I had on the initial policy questions was I wasn't quite clear what our policy is on some issues, or whether spokesmen and women really mean what they say.

Like many people I'm confident that we'll have a Conservative government but I'm not sure what real difference it will make.

A sad state of affairs.

[pp]

Surprised dan hannans conservatism wasn't a specific option.

I think that any thought of using policy to 'attack' anything is misguided.

Conservative principals should be applied to the countries current state of affairs, and the policies should write themselves.

Distorting policies (for any reason) means abandoning or betraying conservative principals.

If changing a policy does not betray a conservative principal, then the policy was wrong in the first place!

The main issue I had over the 'ring fenced spending' is that it appeared to be someones personal list of 'pet' areas - rather than being a natural function of conservative principals.

[R.Baker]

I am anti bnp and believe that their target this time is the Labour party and therefore we should completely ignore them,and of course,the others.
We have much to do.

[Bexie]

Re NHS. Split it out from Central Governement and fund it from an independent NI foundation, taking NI contributions directly rather than being funded via the treasury
Re Schools. Fund via local income tax, School boards elected locally, restore the examination boards
Re Widdicombe. Saint Widdy of West Malling sounds good to me
Re the BNP. Look at their manifesto. It is a broadly conservative (small s) with social concience, regardless of the messanger it is an attractive manifesto. ideas like helping farmers, aid to the elderly and more localism are in line with messages we should be handing out
Re Asylum seekers.
If they arrive without papers, they are committing an offense. Therefore they should be interned until they can be identified. If they arrive having crossed Europe, they have broken the terms of the treaty (first country rule ) and should be deported. Only if they arrive by plane, or sea from a country which we view as a source of asylum seekers, should they be accepted, and then strictly on the basis that they are seeking refuge until they can return. If they want to immigrate then they should leave and apply outside the country.

[Caroline Strafford]

I would like you to have asked how effective we all thought the Conservative Party was as an opposition party.

I still cannot understand why we continually have row upon row of empty benches in the House of Commons, particularly when important legislation is being discussed. We have just learned that Parliament is having an extra week's Summer holiday. Do MPs realise there is an economic crisis at the moment? No wonder the general public is cynical about MPs, and this really worries me that ordinary members of the public will feel why bother to vote when the MPs are not SEEN to be working. (I know all about standing committees etc.)

Last night about 5pm the House of Commons sitting was suspended until 7pm as government business was finished. Yet we are told that often bills are not properly discussed. What is happening to democracy?

[Victor, NW Kent]

I am sorry I had to put Don't Know alongside several of the Shadow Cabinet names as I am not even sure that they are still alive.

Is the idea that the Shadows for the Devolved Nations only appear once a year or so when their portfolio is debated in the House? Does Therese de Villers only appear every few weeks to speak on Transport? Is everything so hunky-dory in that area?

Does Andrew Lansley appear constantly to talk or write about the nation's largest employer - the NHS?

Mostly they seem to be a sleepy lot, content with a gentle 4 day week.

Not nearly good enough to come alive only in the month before a General Election - get moving or make way.

[John Bright]

The crisis facing an incoming Conservative government will be of such profundity that it will be almost impossible to know where to start:

· Abolish as many quangos as possible and clip the wings of the others, especially the Health and Safety Executive. Health and safety is important but this guango has strayed well beyond its remit.
· Any remaining quangos must be fully accountable to the government/parliament.
· Establish a five-year moratorium on all immigration, whether it is from within the EU or outside it, and follow this with a very strict immigration policy. This country is now grossly overpopulated.
· Strengthen our borders.
· Strengthen our defences.
· Remove as much red tape as possible, especially from business, the NHS and education.
· Allow professionals within the NHS and education to get on with their job with an absolute minimum of political interference.
· Abolish all league tables and check lists.
· Hold a referendum on the EU.
· Clean up the BBC by removing its flagrant left wing bias and restore it to its former glory.
· Restore the national identity of the English.
· Stop giving overseas aid to countries that no longer need it. Charity begins at home.
· Strengthen Parliament.
· Curtail surveillance and prevent further development of a police state. The police should be reminded that they are servants of the people, not the state.
· Stop ID cards.
· Abolish HIPs.
· Curtail Political Correctness, which is out of control and causing damage.
· Reform Council Tax, which is an inequitable form of local taxation.
· Remove as much as possible of the previous government’s repressive legislation from the statute book.
· Repeal the Human Rights Act.
· Give back to the people of Britain their freedom.

This list could be much longer.

While I will welcome the next Conservative government, the sooner it comes the better, I fear that it will have little impact in improving the dire situation extant in Britain today. Who knows what other grave problems it will find when it gets to see the books? In the first instance, it will probably be lucky if it can stop further erosion and hold the status quo.

[RuralTrueBlue]

Well put John Bright.

Sadly I am very pessimistic that a Cameron led administration will get even close to these, true, Conservative principles.

[Ross Warren]

"WHY I NO LONGER VOTE CONSERVATIVE AND TOTALLY SUPPORT THE British National Party."

Lets have some common sense when we get in please. BNP is not going to be forming the next government and is stuck for the time being at the foaming mouth stage.
"
To end, the fact is we just CANNOT carry on as we are. We have not the resources, the housing, the space, the infrastructure, the anything else. It needs radical sorting out"

The presence of so many unwelcome people is a problem I grant you. It gives me no end of pause for thought. However, we have to get into power before there is any prospect of change. Those Pinko's at Nu-Labour will only increase the numbers of foreigners.BNP will not be winning the next general election and by the time Conservatives are out again BNP will have become a pressure group without a cause. Conservatives will change things and are listening to your concerns. Do you imaging that the party of Churchill and Thatcher is not up to the task they are being handed. We will bring back Britain that much I promise you confidently.

[Simon]

ROSS

Hello mate. Thanks for your reply which I take on board, and respect to you my friend.

You are right. The BNP will not be winning an election. But at the moment it acts as a lightening rod for highlighting the MOST SERIOUS issues that the traitors of Nu Labour have no reason to fix, and the Conservatives are too afraid to deal with or discuss for fear of being branded 'Little Englanders' 'Nazis, or 'wrayshists'.

However the BNP has never experienced the support it is now. And this comes against media lies, lies from other parties and a press that is not allowed to report in a positive light on any aspect of the BNP.

NUJ guidelines exist PROHIBITING the press from reporting on the BNP in any manner that can be construed as positive. Did anyone on here know that ?

So not withstanding the above, they are not doing too badly. However, in the event of them gaining a SINGLE seat in the Euros, the face of British politics will change forever.

Once their message reaches millions without the twisting and lies attached by other parties and the media and the UAF and Searchlight I confidently expect their numbers to grow by the tens of thousands. I really believe that.

And although at a regional level the BBC is reporting on some of the fundraising events the BNP hold - without twisting and lies attached, the real message of truth we carry is not reaching a mass television audience... Yet.

We know we are way ahead on the internet battle but that's because our website has hundreds of thousands more hits than any other party. Apart from Barak Obamas official website, ours is the most visited political website in the world.

For Conservatives who think the BNP are all unreformed knuckle dragging racists I suggest a visit to the site and spend a good hour on there. I would be seriously surprised if you do not agree with at least 90 percent of our policies.

Of course I would not expect you to admit as much. And therein lies the problem with todays Tories. David Cameron is, to me at least, a truth denier and afraid to tread where we go, even to a less radical extent.

So the Conservatives will probably win the next election, but what's the point when you have gained the world and lost your soul ?

So lets end with a timely quote -

" In a world of deceit, telling the truth becomes a revoloutionary act"

George Orwell.

[Tanuki]

We should commit to dumping the entire 'international development' budget and with it the Department for International Development and its associated hangers-on.

When the UK is in such a financial pickle we can ill afford to fritter away money we haven't got on the likes of DfID.

[Simon]

NU LABOURS BUDGET...

£260 million for 'training and subsidies' for out of work young people

£800 million in Foreign Aid for India alone and untold millions for all manner of Third World countries,the Foreign Aid Budget still stands at over NINE BILLION.

And people ask why I support the British National Party ??? !!

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