ThunderDragon Blog

David Cameron is to borrow Barack Obama’s slogan “Plan for Change” for the Conservative conference.

This does show a grest deal of confidence on the Conservatives’ part, even though to be fair the Conservatives are in a better political posiiton than the Democrats, as they are leading by ten points even after their opponents conference bounce and before their own. Even though the differences in the political systems mean that even with a 10% lead, winning would be hard for the Tories.

Cameron has begun his comeback against Brown after his conference speech, and espiecally his “not the time for a novice” line - which could be aimed at either Miliband and other rebels, Cameron or even, technically, Obama himself*:

Let’s look at the question of experience. Yes, this Prime Minister has got experience … he has got the experience of saying year after year ‘I have ended boom and bust’.

And yet now we face really difficult economic circumstances. Now, I don’t think that is the experience we need right now.

Buuuuurn.

So what the Conservatives need to do now is develop their policies so thst the people know exactly what they stand for and what they will do when in government.

Let’s plan for change.

* This actually sets up an interesting question: is Brown turning this into a copy of the American presidential battle - with himself as McCain and Cameron as Obama? Perhaps not the wisest decision.

Lord Ashcroft is exploiting a loophole in the political donations laws in order to fund the Conservative Party. He is sending his money from a tax haven in Central America through one of his British-registered companies.

This money is entirely legal for the Conservatives to accept.

However, it does appear to break the spirit of the law over political donations. Whilst no-one can blame Ashcroft or the Conservatives for doing this - especially not the Labour Party, with their own actually illegal donations - that doesn’t mean that it should be allowed to continue.

Loopholes of any sort shouldn’t be allowed to exist once they are discovered. The Electoral Commission should endeavour close this one off as soon as possible, and Ashcroft should cease chanelling money in this way immediately - and instead donate it personally.

… and Cameron’s to the Right.

Gordon Brown is now seen as being much farther away from the position of the average voter than Tony Blair was when he was Prime Minister…

The poll… shows that voters have sharply revised their view of Mr Brown over the past year, seeing him as much more left-wing than in early September 2007, at the end of his brief honeymoon as Prime Minister. This is the biggest change for any leader or party over the period.

However, Mr Brown is narrowly nearer both to the Centre and to the average voter than David Cameron, who is seen as shifting to the right…

The poll therefore shows that, despite the shift away from the average voter by Mr Brown and Labour, Mr Cameron and his party still have a long way to go to be where the average voter is. On a five-year comparison, the Tories have, however, moved 0.30 nearer the Centre, Labour 0.12 farther away. (The Times)

However, there is one huge issue over this poll: because it has been created entirely on a Left-Right one-dimensional sliding scale.

[Sidenote: Clegg is seen as only very slightly more towards the centre than Brown in this poll.]

This is a rubbish scale. Politics is so much more complicated than can ever be expressed in one dimension. Even the two dimensional scale leaves much to be desired, but it is as good as we can get. To start with, it includes “Libertarian” and “Authoritarian”, which can cross the Left-Right axis. So, if they want this sort of poll to be taken seriously, they need to plot it on the two-dimension scale.

As it is, this poll shows little about how the public actually view the parties.

As Conference season is very nearly upon us, it’s time to start a new mwm based on what you would say if you had a platform at any party conference. [Idea nicked from Mike Ion.]

So here goes:

Conference,

I believe that we, the Conservative Party, are once more ready to take office. Let’s be frank - for a while, we had lost it, as can sometimes happen. But now, we have developed and moved on. We have taken a look at ourselves, done our navel gazing, and then we have taken a look at modern Britain and seen how we can make it better. And we are now in the process of setting out our vision for the future, after the destruction befalling us from a decade and more of Labour mis-management.

When Labour took power in 1997, Britain was at the start of an economic upturn. Thst continued, despite the policies they pursued which has driven our economy to the edge of a precipice. Rather than spending that time developing and reforming our public services, they resorted to the tried-and-failed Labour tactic of tax-and-spend.

Last time they tried that, we had to go in and fix it. We had to reform the state and bring back economic security to the nation, because they broke it.

And it looks like we need to try and fix it all over again.

The truth is, as the Chancellor recently alluded to, is that we have been screwed by Labour. They promised much, took the money from our wage packets to pay for it, and then squandered it. Time and time again. Gordon Brown failed when he was at the Treasury and the economy survived despite him. But he took it right to the precipice, and as soon as the world economy slowed, the hollowness of his boasts about economic competence were revealed.

The country is clearly calling for us to step up our game and set out our stall with how we can fix it - and so far they seem to like what they are seeing. In every vote and in every poll, we are the clear winners. But now, the present is the time that we must lose sight of. We must not get cocky and see the next election as “ours”. Instead, we must respect that it is up to the people, the voters of this country, whether or not we are allowed to govern them for one Parliament.

Our country needs us. But it is up to us to go to them and tell them what it is we stand for - the freedom for them to spend their own money however they like, the freedom for them to do what they like in their own homes without government snooping or disapproval of them drinking more than than they say we should or smoking at all, and greater protection from criminals through putting real police on the street.

Our politics is about reform - change for the better, rather than for the sake of change. About cutting waste and providing more efficient and less polluting services. About making Britain cleaner, greener, and safer.

Thank you.

To write their own ‘pretend’ conference speech, I tag:

• Letters From A Tory
• Tony Sharp
• Nich Starling
• James Graham
• Sadie Smith
• Dave Cole
• Ordovicious
• And anyone else who wants to.

Completely and utterly deluded. Especially when polls are suggesting that after the next election, there may be a Conservative Commons majority of 260. That Brown thinks that Labour will win the next election really shows how separated he is from the real world.

I agree with Eric Pickles, who says:

The analysis is that it is now impossible for [Labour] to win the election, but it’s perfectly possible for [the Conservatives] to lose it… We can’t take a 20 per cent lead in the polls for granted.

Labour certainly appear finished, and it is unlikely that a change of leader will make any real difference at all. The Conservatives, however, certainly can’t take any poll lead for granted. We an’t be complacent. We need to keep on working to get a raft of policies and a united vision for what a Conservative government will do, and communicate that to the people between now and the next election.

David Cameron:

I’m going to be as radical a social reformer as Mrs Thatcher was an economic reformer, and radical social reform is what this country needs right now.

Margaret Thatcher in her time realised that the big challenge was reviving Britain’s economy, and we should recognise that the challenge for the modern Conservatives is reviving our society.

It’s dealing with the issues of family breakdown, welfare dependency, failing schools, crime, and the problems that we see in too many of our communities.

As much as I applaud the sentiment, as social reform is definitely the challenge for any incoming Conservative government, comparing himself with Margaret Thatcher seems a bit like blowing the dog whistle.

It also, really, seems a bit silly. Thatcher was - and is - an incredibly divisive figure. Claiming the be the “new Thatcher” will alienate a great many people. That Cameron is making such comparisons demonstrates that he is confident of having a greater claim on the votes of the majority than Brown and is instead intending to ensure that he keeps his core voters on side.

With the use of the ‘T-word’, Cameron is laying a claim to being both a Conservative and a social reformer with it. He’s using his dog whistle to try and have his cake and eat it. If he’s lucky, he may well succeed.

Image: The Sun

I’m seriously impressed. This something that I called for just over a month ago, and they have produced it.

However, I do have some criticisms:

To start with, there is no summary of the full amount that each MP has claimed from the taxpayer under expenses. This makes a real comparison harder, though I’m sure that there are plenty of junior people at various national newspapers frantically adding the figures that they have together. Each section - staff, office, communication, additional costs alliance, and travel - should also really have their own total cost as well.

In the “Other” section, the level at which specific items are required to be reported must be lower - any individual item of over £100 should have to be declared.

Whilst the area for “additional notes” is good, it would instead be far better to require a more detailed breakdown of expenditures as the use of that area varies massively between MPs.

Also, I can see no reason for the names of every staff member employed by an MP to be declared in this return. All we need to know is how many employees they have and whether any of these are family members [and a definition of "family" would be helpful, too], and the total cost of all staff members.

Finally, this return should be a three-whipped activity. No Conservative MP should be allowed to not declare their expenses. If they miss two returns, they should lose the whip until they have made a full delcrartion. If this takes more than three months, they should be automatcially and formally deselected by the party. This seven should be ashamed of themselves.

This shows that the Conservatives truly are determined to tackle the expenses issue, and I am absolutely certain that this is the only way to go - but they definitively still have further to go. One thing that they should do now is produce an ethics manual for Tory MPs to abide by, firmly establishing the principles and specifics - and the Conservative party as determined to actually wipe out sleaze rather than just claim to be “whiter than white” without any evidence.

David Cameron’s statement that

Politicians need to do everything they can to regain the trust of the British people, and transparency has a key part to play in that process. We must show that we’re spending taxpayers money sensibly and correctly.

We are the first party to demand this information from our members, and our MPs are voluntarily revealing a much more detailed breakdown of their expenses than official rules require them to. I’m glad that we’re leading the way.

shows that he know the way forward. By making these declarations public, the Conservatives have shamed Labour and the Lib Dems. Labour’s response just highlights the difference.

Note: My day job is in compliance and dealing with this sort of return.

David Cameron has given a speech saying, basically, what we all know to pretty much be the truth. Basically, in the words of the Telegraph, “the obese, the idle and the poor have no one to blame but themselves”.

I have an issue with the inclusion of “the poor” in that list - being poor isn’t a choice, and anyone with half a brain wouldn’t be. And being poo can be caused by so many issues that are way beyond the control of any individual.

However, “the obese” and “the idle” certainly have no-one but themselves to blame. They can do something about it. Cameron is saying what needs to be said.

We as a society have been far too sensitive. In order to avoid injury to people’s feelings, in order to avoid appearing judgemental, we have failed to say what needs to be said. We have seen a decades-long erosion of responsibility, of social virtue, of self-discipline, respect for others, deferring gratification instead of instant gratification.

Instead we prefer moral neutrality, a refusal to make judgments about what is good and bad behaviour, right and wrong behaviour. Bad. Good. Right. Wrong. These are words that our political system and our public sector scarcely dare use any more.

There is a difference between right and wrong, and taking personal responsibility is essential to knowing this difference.

People are responsible for themselves. No-one else can take do so. And it is about time that politicians stop making the State stop taking on this responsibility. This is the only way to fix our broken society.

This is a sign that an incoming Conservative government would start to roll back the State in to its place.

I mean seriously. They’re elected to do a job. To represent the people. Whether that be in Westminster, Bruseels/Strasbourg, Holyrood, the Senedd, or even at the local town hall.

So why do they keep fucking fiddling their expenses?! They get paid to do a job. If they don’t think that they get paid enough and want more money, then they can go into the private sector and try their luck. But what they shouldn’t do is follow the examples of Derek Conway and Giles Chichester.

David Cameron is absolutely correct in his statement to say:

Giles Chichester is right to stand down as leader of our MEPs to prepare a full explanation of how his office is funded. Just as I expect our MPs to adhere to the highest standards, so must our MEPs. The tax-paying public have a right to know how their money is being spent and politicians have a duty to ensure it is spent properly.

But those words now need to be followed up with actions. Since both of the main expenses scandals have involed Conservative politicians, the Conservative Party must take the lead in ensuring that such actions are stopped.

As such, the Conservative Party should publish a monthly audit of all expenses claimed by Conservative MPs and MEPs, with explanations for the claims from the politicians. To ensure that, in future, all Tory politicians are completely in the clear over their expenses.

To show that he is committed to following pretty words with string action, Cameron must implent this without delay. And MPs who refuse to comply should lose the whip, and new candidates selected in their constituencies.

By doing this, the Conservatives will shame the other parties and Parliament itself and, with any luck, cause Parliament to take up the baton and produce this for all MPs.

Tax cutting appears to be the order of the day, with Cameron’s commitment to a “long-term tax reduction” swiftly followed by Clegg saying that he will fight against “excessive taxation”.

About bloody time!

It seems that Cameron is now satisfied that the Conservatives have been “decontaminated” enough to make any support for tax cutting in to a virtue, rather than the vice that a statist Labour have made it out to be over more than a decade.

The Lib Dems, on the other hand, appear to have finally realised that people want less tax - and so they decide to reverse all their previous tax policies and “principles” and jump on the tax-cutting bandwagon. Whoops, your poll-chasing is showing , Nick!

However, that two parties have now “come out” in favour of tax cuts cannot be anything but a good thing, as it puts pressure and the political emphasis on Labour to demonstrate why taxing and spending [and wasting] should be the way to go.

Just to be quire clear - we’re talking about cutting tax, not slashing it. State institutions will not be unfunded by a Conservative government. But useless iniatives and excessive money wasting will be curtailed - and the money left in the pockets of the people who earn it. Us, the taxpayers.