The long-term effects of Osborne’s slash-and-burn approach to welfare are less certain than IDS’s more considered approach.
Number 10 wants to turn the barrage of statistics claiming success into a story about protecting voters in an uncertain world.
The Left blames the wealthy, just as a failed merchant blames his competitor, as a way to cover for its failings and ineptitude.
Most means of tackling poverty involve leaving people alone to make their own decisions about how to earn money – and providing an infrastructure to support their decisions where necessary.
Attitudes towards disabled people have been transformed over the past 20 years or so, and it was a Conservative Government which implemented the first disability discrimination bill.
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. Oxfam is undoubtedly right to say that Dame Barbara Stocking, who was paid £119,560 as it Chief Executive, "could expect to earn at least £75,000 more for a comparable job in the private sector". One might question why that that salary increased by 19 per cent in two years […]
David Cameron has given a target to local councils that by 2015 they are to have turned round 120,000 Troubled Families. These are families which each cost the taxpayer an estimated average of £75,000 a year. It's not just the welfare bill but the army of public sector operatives constantly meeting them – the social […]
Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter Even now, despite the economic difficulties, the Tories are still preferred to Labour on questions of economic competence. That's before any economic recovery. More people blame the last Labour government for the deficit than blame the Coalition. Cameron beats Ed Miliband on nearly every measure of what it takes to […]
By Peter HoskinFollow Peter on Twitter The last Conservative manifesto contained a commitment not just to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on overseas aid, but also to ‘legislate in the first session of a new Parliament to lock in this level of spending for every year from 2013.’ The Coalition Agreement made a similar […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. We planned this week's series on Compassionate Conservatism, which opens with today's article by Jesse Norman, long before last week's clash of attitudes, ideas and culture over welfare. It has an even wider application. If a single survey finding should be embedded into the consciousness of every party activist […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter I've just come back from an event at the Resolution Foundation. Matt Hancock MP was setting out a Conservative agenda for tackling low pay. You can read his speech in full here but the two big things you need to know about the event and the speech are… A […]
By Tim MontgomerieFollow Tim on Twitter In my other blog this morning I give the Coalition low marks for its record on deficit reduction. Progress has been dismally slow. Let me celebrate two other things that the Budget delivered, however, and point to three big achievements overall. First, Britain will become the first major economy […]
By Paul GoodmanFollow Paul on Twitter. The vast majority of 15-17 year olds in Young Offender Institutions have at some point been excluded from school at some point. Half of those in this age group are assessed as having the literacy levels to that expected of a 7 -11 year old. Furthermore: A youth custodial […]
Britain is one of the few developed countries which doesn’t cap these loans – it would be deeply Conservative to do so.