As ConservativeHome reported last week David Cameron will be putting the NHS at the heart of his attempts to convince people that the problems voters had associated with the Blair-Brown years will continue so long as Gordon Brown remains in government. The Guardian reports that David Cameron will visit a hospital in Worthing today and in
the West Midlands tomorrow. Interestingly, the Conservative leader is going to link the problems of the NHS with the government’s failure to spend taxpayers’ money well.
The Tories first made this kind of link during the 2001 campaign with the ‘You’ve Paid The Tax’ poster campaign (three examples of which are below). Taxpayers then were unpersuaded that government had wasted their money. Times have moved on with much greater appreciation of the extent to which the government has wasted taxpayers’ hard-earned money. The TaxPayers’ Alliance and the Burning Our Money blog have done a great job at helping to drive this change in public mood. Perhaps its time for CCHQ to revive a version of the 2001 campaign?