David Davis, favourite to succeed Michael Howard, wrote for this morning's Telegraph.
The main points of his article were:
> Modernisation of the Conservative Party is essential. The fact that fewer than a quarter of women under 55 voted Tory is, he wrote, a sign that Conservatives still do not understand the difficulties of contemporary motherhood and of modern life in general.
> The scandalous fact that there is less social mobility in Britain than 30 years ago with 750,000 young people not in education or work.
> A low tax economy is needed to generate the wealth that Britain's public services depend upon and to "lift people out of poverty".
> Labour is running into economic difficulties and is wasting taxpayers' money - this will almost automatically lift Tory fortunes.
This quotation is the essence of his argument: "At exactly the time when the Blairite model is failing, it would be extraordinary for the Tory party to try to imitate it. Instead, timeless Conservative principles need to be applied to modern problems. Those principles are rooted in a commitment to liberty, and liberty does not date. I was drawn into politics by Churchill's dream of a Britain in which "there is a limit beneath which no man may fall, but no limit to which any man might rise".
"We musn't imitate Blair model". Translation: Vote for me not those trendy Notting Hill boys.
Posted by: Howard | 11 May 2005 at 22:40