
Carl Thomson, co-author of the Bow Group pamphlet
There is a very good pamphlet that has just been published by the Bow Group on cutting government spending without impacting on public service delivery. The author is John Redwood, MP for Wokingham who spoke at the Conservative Annual Dinner the other evening along similar lines to some of the themes in the pamphlet. Carl Thomson, our candidate in Mount Hermon East in the Woking Borough Council elections next year (Twitter @carlthomson), has co-authored the report with John Redwood and his clarity of thought is evident in there too.
Mr Redwood has written an article on ConservativeHome about his work and it is definitely worth a read – it is comfortably digested in 20 minutes. The two authors go through each government department and suggest areas where savings could be made. Some of them are themes we are already familiar with such as quangos and staffing and there are one of two others thrown in that you may not have considered.
Particularly interesting are the comments of the introducion and conclusion, which talk about the politics of cutting expenditure, how Labour has tried first to say that all spending is untouchable and automatically equates to sacking doctors and nurses and then changed its mind. Spending cuts are not about cutting services, the pamphlet says, that is a very public sector way of looking at things. They are about delivering everything that you want to deliver – which might be everything you deliver now, or even more – more efficiently, with less waste and providing the taxpayer with better value.
A lot of ConservativeHomers are calling for John Redwood to be installed as Shadow Chancellor on the back of this but personally I think they are living in a dreamworld. Mr Redwood’s problem is not ability – he is among the most able of all MPs – it’s his public image, associated as he is with the cost-cutting, economy-is-everything right wing of the party. This pamphlet has shown another side to him – that he a considerate MP looking to create a better, more financially sustainable future but I had to laugh in the conclusion when he suggested that PR, spin and marketing costs should be cut.
Apart from the fact that everyone says that in opposition but seem to be much keener on PR when it comes to telling the world what they’ve achieved, perhaps if John Redwood had had the benefit of some proper PR and marketing to the general public during the first 10 years of his political career, there’s a chance he might be Shadow Chancellor by now!
Anyway, being Shadow Chancellor is no good if you can’t contribute anything useful and this is a superb contribution to the debate. Particularly congratulations to Carl, whose first pamphlet for the Bow Group this is – it’s a very careful and measured look at an emotive subject and will I’m sure find its way to the Shadow Chancellor before long.







