The government today announced some more projects that would have to be put on hold in light of the economic circumstances we find ourselves in. Among them was the £80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, which sits very close to NC’s constituency.

Labour beatniks, keen to grab back Sheffield City Council from the Lib Dems and keep them out of the Sheffield Central constituency where the majority is now just 165 for Paul Blomfield, have already been condemning this move. But to say that it will cost jobs is just nonsense – no jobs currently exist; the postponement of the loan will mean that they won’t be created as planned. This money would be better spent avoiding cuts to the hundreds of other projects where cancelled government funding will mean private contractors losing revenue and having to lay off staff.

But as they are involved in the “leaching” industry of outsourcing away from union-backed in-house public sector workers, Derek Simpson doesn’t give so much of a monkey’s about them. Apart from anything else, £80m is simply far too much public money to spend on 150 jobs, whether in Sheffield, South Wales or Surrey.

The PM speaking at MK

The PM’s speech in Milton Keynes was among the most important of his political career so far. It defined his position more clearly than anything previously on the defining political question of the decade – how to get Britain back into business.

We can take from it several things – firstly that the PM will lay it on very thick about the economic crisis being Labour’s fault. I think that’s no bad thing – particularly because they are starting to come out with some pretty outrageous criticism of the coalition on a situation they helped, at least, to create. But I think he’s got to be careful and not get too free with this tactic. He needs to be the consensus man, the leader, the unifier and the solution, not the “new” problem.

Secondly, the PM is happy to tell us just how bad it is, unlike Labour. Not everyone will agree with him but it is obviously in his interest to make things seem as bad as possible. I don’t think a great deal of exaggeration is necessary – things are very, very bad – but the openness he is in a political position to afford could be something of an advantage. I think if played well, far from Mervyn King’s prediction being correct, the public could be sympathetic to the Coalition for some time to come. Honest actions go a long way in politics nowadays and the public recognise favourably politicians who are prepared to do the right, if not popular, thing.

Thirdly, Danny Alexander will be right next to him – all the way. There’s no way that the Liberal Democrats are getting off the hook with this one as full members of the Coalition and I don’t think they want to. NC has said that there will be a “cut with kindness” policy that will shield some of the most vulnerable from the worst of what needs to be done but that can only do so much – they can’t be protected from council cuts in many areas.

Nor do I think it’s a good idea for George Osborne to widely consult the public on where to save money. This is a very risky strategy that could puta very considerable rod in his back when Labour organises a Twitter campaign to get people to respond in a particular way. The results could then be FOIed and may not be where the final decision needs to be made. It could look like the public has been consulted and ignored – not great PR.

The simple answer here is that, a bit like Masterchef, this new economic future is going to “change our life”. There are opportunities for efficiency, yes, and looking at different ways of providing services. But the bottom line is that we need to get a £170bn deficit down and there’s a lot of money to hack off budgets. It must be done, it must be done quickly and there is a certainly amount of political risk that is going to come as the pay-off of winning the election (sort of).

I think the Coalition needs to remember that the public has a great deal more of a problem with dishonesty than ineffectiveness. If the government tries to mask the problem, if it breaks its promises over what it is going to cut, if there is a suspicion that certain groups are being unjustly protected or if there is any underhand treasury regulation as with the last government, the considerable goodwill that the public holds will drain quickly.

If the government is straight, calls a cut a cut and acts responsibly for the best interests of the nation, it might just find itself laying down a legacy of decency – if not prosperity – and a chance in 2015 to lead the country properly back into the new world economy with its head held high.

There is a story in the FT today, which unfortunately I can’t link to as the FT requires payment for viewing its stories once you reach a certain number of views. It was however taken up in the Telegraph and details what the government think a future of reduced government waste looks like in a yet-to-be-published review.

 There is clear blue water between the parties on this, even if Labour are trying to steal our ideas, U-turning on what they previously parroted about Tory cuts. Compare this with the pamphlet put forward by John Redwood and Woking’s very own Carl Thomson and you very soon begin to understand how we are serious about cutting government waste; and Labour is a serious waste about to be cut out of government.

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.

Ed Balls - a rare point

Ed Balls, the man who takes the ‘Ed’ out of ‘education’, has ever-so-accidentally let skip that he wants to slice £2bn from the education budget on the grounds that our national debt will reach a staggering £1.1tn by 2011.

Well, £2bn isn’t a great deal in the grand scheme of things but every penny helps. Why, though, has he chosen to be so very public about these cuts, which he maintains will be achieved by relatively painless “natural wastage”? Because by 2011, when the next spending review in 2010 will take effect, Balls and his chums will all be on the opposition front benches – but the treasury figures will have been predicated with a £2bn reduction in education spending for George Osborne to worry about.

So George Osborne’s first review will have education cuts built in and he will have to decide whether to keep them in and risk a high-profile run-in with the NUT, those cheeky Lib Dems and even the bare-facedly shameless PLP - or whether to put that money back in for the sake of some great PR and wield the axe elsewhere.

It’s one of many, many ticking packages that the Labour front bench is busy constructing for an incoming Conservative government. As if ruining the country wasn’t bad enough, Labour also believes it’s a good idea to sabotage the tools of the next government who have to sort out their sorry legacy.

The only hope that this country has of being able to contribute something worthwhile to the world and hold its place on the top table of nations rests with the quality of education we give people, young and old alike. There may be cuts to be made in our education system – I don’t know, I’m not an insider – but getting rid of teachers appears to me to be a “must try harder” idea.

We need more teachers – we need better teachers – but we also need an education system with different types of education to provide interest for different types of people – scientific, artistic, business-minded, academic, practical, creative and everything in between. For that, we need more money, not less. I would rather see money diverted from income-based benefits into both child and adult education to take people out of state-sponsored poverty and into self-driven opportunity.

No doubt Ed Balls’s response to my view would be “so what?”. Labour just doesn’t see education in the same way. I believe Tony Blair did – but he was never supported by his party in his aim to make education the enabling, enlightening, enriching and enduring aspect of our lives that it should be. 

DC and his front bench have largely had the benefit of great education and they should be able to appreciate the difference it can make. Let’s hope so – this is one area of Conservative policy I’m looking forward to seeing in the manifesto. But first they have to dodge the Balls.