The task of changing public opinion falls to the wider conservative movement – to pressure groups, think-tanks, columnists, and associated auxiliaries. The trouble is that, at the moment, most of the people in those categories are training their fire on the Conservative Party.
Even before the latest Hinkley Point setback, this target looked nigh-on impossible deliver. Analysis has suggested it is right at the edge of what is possible.
Liz Truss has called the policy “profoundly unconservative”. What’s unconservative? Discuss. But what can certainly be said is that it’s illberal and, in this case, Party members line up with individual freedom against government coercion.
Pumping yet more money without reform into failing organisations is likely to continue to disappoint.
I hope the British public get an answer. Because these are highly consequential decisions about the future shape of the state. £28 billion is £4 billion more than the annual Home Office budget.
Voters believe four of the Government’s five key pledges are more likely to happen under Labour than the Conservatives. Meanwhile, 2019 Tory voters prioritise spending on public services over tax cuts,
To make progress over the coming year, the Party needs to reach out to more voters and the danger is that fighting culture wars just puts people off.
Even as it is, we have been fortunate riots that have proven a rarity. Cut 6.7 per cent a year from the budget and they become almost an inevitability.
He will probably judge it better to keep a conservative spending message and dial down on the more radical green growth programme. Which would require her to make a painful U-turn.
Voters clearly want it – and the recent past suggests he’s a more credible agent of it than Sir Keir.
The second part of our series on reducing demand for government, in which we set out a programme for change – focused on families, civil society and government.
The second part of our series on reducing demand for government, in which we set out a programme for change – focused on families, civil society and government.
Instead of a Conservative housing policy that emphasises home ownership and architectural beauty, it will now be done the Labour way. When tower blocks start rising over the Home Counties, I hope that our remaining MPs realise their mistake.
You’d have thought it in jest if you’d been told that for £50 per citizen, a “Taskforce” drawn from the private sector would operate with a degree of independence from Whitehall, take risks and secure 357 million vaccine doses in nine months – all under-budget.
A remarkable amount has been achieved. Often against the odds and in the face of adversity. And certainly in circumstances far less benign than those faced by New Labour.