ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

What unpopular things need to be said by the Tory leadership?

On his personal blog Jeremy Hunt MP reflected on the current anti-politician mood and wrote this:

"One of the reasons we are all considered to have our snouts in the trough is the perception that the government is acting purely from self-interested political motives (e.g. to win elections) and not being driven by a broader sense of mission as to what is right for the country... What will solve this? Only a government that deliberately does something unpopular which it knows will cost it votes but is none the less right for the country. Dealing with Britain's debt crisis perhaps?"

Jeremy is 100% right.  ConHome started a truth-telling award in February and honoured Boris Johnson for his remarks on public pensions but there aren't many other examples of politicians leading public opinion.  Even the Tories' opposition to oppose Labour's fiscal stimulus - certainly lonely and reasonably brave - was supported by a good measure of public opinion.

Here are three things I'd like the Tories to say (and then do) that will be unpopular:

1. Cut public spending. The scale of Brown's debt crisis makes this necessary and public opinion appears to support it but once the axe falls there will be huge resistance from trade unions and other vested interests.
2. Defend capitalism.  By capitalism I don't mean big business necessarily but the small businesses and inventors who will rebuild the British economy.  Defending them means opposing measures that will harm them.  A 45p tax rate, for example.
3. Putting more combat troops into Afghanistan. I suspect most readers agree with the other two of my unpopular measures but I guess not with this one.  For reasons outlined by David Cameron at last year's Party Conference ["If the Taliban come back, the terrorist training camps come back. That would mean more terrorists, more bombs and more slaughter on our streets. That is why we back our troops’ mission in Afghanistan one hundred per cent."] we can't afford to lose this first major battle of the war in terror but we are well on the way to losing it.  We need politicians who will tell a war-weary and inward-looking public that we cannot allow Afghanistan and the border regions of Pakistan to become failed states and havens for terrorists. And telling the public means telling them more than once and in imaginative, reassuring ways.

What are your unpopular things you would like the Tory leadership to say and do?

Tim Montgomerie

Boris Johnson tells the truth about public sector pensions

Where are the politicians who are telling us the truth about the depth of the economic and social challenges facing Britain?

In an occasional series we'll highlight those big beasts who stand up and tell the truth.

Honoured today is Boris Johnson for this observation in his weekly Telegraph column:

"It is incredible but true that the average public sector wage is now higher than the average private sector wage; and public sector pensioners can still generally expect a final salary pension scheme – and these can be very generous indeed. In local government, for instance, you can expect to be awarded one sixtieth of your final salary for every year of service. So if you are a chief executive or other senior official, on a salary of more than £200,000, and you have worked for 30 years – well, you do the maths. It is a very generous deal, and speaking as a former MP and current Mayor, I hesitate to knock it, and I only do so because it is unsustainable. With firms now laying off staff in their thousands, with unemployment apparently set to hit three million for the first time since the 1980s, it is simply too much to expect council-tax payers to scrimp and save to pay for the pensions of local government's colossal clerisy, when those pensions are so much more comfortable than anything they could afford themselves."

MPs Brian Binley and Mark Field also deserve credit, of course.

Tim Montgomerie