Welcome to my blog. I am a former local journalist who now works in PR and a Conservative and community activist in Woking and Horsell. This blog will keep updated on local issues as well as my interests and quirky news stories.
Come on David, it's not rocket science!
Last night was Woking Constituency Conservative Association’s annual general meeting at which Humfrey Malins gave his farewell speech and Jonathan Lord the first of what we hope will be many. During his speech, Jonathan talked about many interesting things, including references to helping the poorest in society that I think it does well for the grass roots to hear.
One of the subjects he touched on was this idea that the Conservative Party has no policies. I firmly believe that this is a message that Labour spinners, aided by the BBC, Grauniad and others are determined to repeat over and over for our consumption – that DC is a salesman with nothing to sell except the art of selling itself. A Blair mark two. Jonathan argued, quite rightly, that there are many examples of Conservative policy out there and that in-depth policy details are not the norm before a general election; Margaret Thatcher didn’t have them in 1979, nor Tony Blair in 1997. What the country understood about these two Leaders of the Opposition, Jonathan said, was their direction of travel.
Cllr Mike Smith asked Jonathan what it was that bound these policies together, the central message to activists and candidates to sell on the doorstep. He, along with others including myself, don’t yet get the sense of an overarching theme to Conservative policy that defines a direction of travel.
It’s desperately needed if DC is to win a convincing rather than narrow victory. And it’s not rocket science. The concept that binds our policies together is three-fold; self-empowerment, opportunity and the fulfillment of aspiration. The credibility gap that the Conservative Party has is linking its support for the wealthy and Middle England, the encouragement of entrepreneurship and businesses and the rolling back of inheritance tax with its desire to help the poorest in society achieve a better life.
Our problem is that we only ever talk about one of these at a time. The first allows our opponents to claim we are the party of the few, not the many. The second provokes a reaction among grass roots that the party is abandoning its core voters. But these two flanks of the spectrum are inextricably linked and go hand-in-hand.
We want to allow people who have been succesful the opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their success. We want the prospect of that enjoyment to be an aspiration that creates excellence in its pursuit. We believe that leaving an estate to the next generation is a self-empowerment that begets striving for success. And we will fight for the right of the well-off to enjoy their lives – as long as they pay a fair share to those less fortunate. The successful business creates employment, tax revenue and generates investment in this country – it is also key to our recovery from this dreadful recession.
Similarly, while I am not entirely comfortable with DC’s phrase Broken Britain, there are parts of Britain that don’t work. In some areas, people have poor life chances and little hope of being anything other than a criminal or lifelong welfare recipient. We have to show these people when they are young that we believe in them. We have to demonstrate through community policing, social services and educational opportunities that with hard work and self-belief, anything is possible. And we have to be serious about it, knowing that it is in society’s interests that we address this problem.
In between these extremes, there are countless other examples of people who want the government to help them achieve their aspirations through the tax system, employment regulations, adult education, public sector reforms and so on. I’m not big on small government - the government should be there to help the people who elect it. I’m big on enabling government - a government that leaves people alone when they are doing well and picks them up when they need help.
But we need to hear more from DC and the party about the link between the two things above. We are not the party of the few, nor are we the party of the many; we must be the party of everyone.
I believe that with the economy being how it is, voters will forgive a lack of specific, concrete promises. But they will not forgive a listlessness, a lack of direction. Now it is for DC to elucidate the various Conservative policies that are out there in these strategic terms – it is not only voters who need to hear it but his own party too.
