The seventeen-point strategy

I didn’t get too excited about the nine-point lead yesterday and I won’t get any more excited about a 17-point lead today. It’s still daily poll, about which I am yet to be convinced, and it comes on the day when DC has received more press coverage – largely positive – than any other.

We saw George Osborne’s speech following by a bounce and then a reality-checking un-bounce. The Labour spinners are out in force over DC – that he has called every single economic decision wrong (although the public appears to reject that) and that his wealth means he can’t understand the concerns of ordinary people. I think this last point will have some resonance but generally only to reinforce antipathy in the minds of those already likely to vote against him ie people will agree with it but still vote for him.

Around 45% is where the Conservative Party needs to be in order to be sure of a decent majority in May. I believe the chances that we will be the largest party after the next election are 99.9% – something extraordinary would have to happen to prevent that. But the electoral system is weighted hugely in Labour’s favour – as I mentioned yesterday, 40% for the Conservatives and 31% for Labour produces a Tory majority of four; if you reverse those figures, Labour gets a majority of 124. There is still a significant chance that despite a good poll lead, DC could face a hung Parliament.

Polls tend to tighten as we go into elections. Sometimes they come out again, as in 1992 and 1997. But in 2005, they got even closer. Conservative high command needs to know that until we are on 45% regularly, anything can happen. They need a really, really effective campaign lined up – with a Cameron bounce every day – to be sure of a majority in the House of Commons worth having.

And in the Parliament we’ve got coming, it’s really important that we don’t end up with a minority government that can be blocked into a stalemate. There’s a lot of hard work ahead in every consistuency.

Cam’s the man

The Camerons after DC's speech

I’ve now had a chance to watch DC today and I’ve got to say that I was pretty impressed overall. To a certain extent, he’s played it safe – no new policy and not too much fire in the belly (no-one likes an angry man) except for poverty, where people will think he’s right to be angry. I was impressed with his fluency as always and also with his humanity and straightforwardness. The voters wanted honest, they wanted straightforward, they wanted transparent. Is DC perfect? No – but I think this is about as close as we’re going to get to any leader meeting those requirements.

So overall I was very happy with his vision and values – he appears to understand that voters want a Conservative government that belives in free enterprise, in wealth creation, a small government and low-tax economy but they will not tolerate that at the expense of social injustice, reduced public services, increasing gap between rich and poor and unfettered corporate greed. I think DC projected that sentiment well today.

But he has got a couple of challenges. Firstly, like any opposition leader he can’t show that he is as good as his word until he gets elected – but he would find it easier to be elected if he could demonstrate he was as good as his word. Trust is an important factor in any opposition leader – and let’s not forget no Conservative has been elected from opposition for 30 years. DC has that trust personally but I don’t think the public yet trust the Conservative Party corporately in the same way; it’s a very fine line to tread and there is opportunity here for PM and the PM to locate inconsistency. And every inconsistency will have a dampening effect on DC’s personal trust level, even if it’s nothing to do with him. We need to stay consistent to maintain trust.

In addition, I still feel that the economy is weak point – unusually – for the Conservatives at the moment. Back in 1998/9, when Tony Blair wiped the floor with us about who was more trusted to run the NHS, the education system etc, the economy was usually the only element on which the Conservatives scored well. Ironically, it’s now the one area where Labour still has a chance – partly because of the above ie they’ve had the opportunity to demonstrate action but also because we have a Shadow Chancellor who’s about as economically literate as I am. Luckily, we also have Philip Hammond and Ken Clarke on board, who do understand economics - but it’s hardly ideal.

Finally, there’s the wealth thing. DC isn’t going to escape the jibes over his privileged upbringing or personal wealth (or that of SamCam). I have to say I find it very strange that Labour and the Liberal Democrats think it’s okay to say someone isn’t fit to govern because of their background or schooling. We don’t say that Labour MPs are unfit because they grew up in poverty on a council estate or Liberal Democrats because they went to third-rate universities – so why should it make a difference that DC went to Eton and Oxford?

Many great PMs have come from Eton and Oxford and most have had comfortable, if not substantial wealth – if he’s up to the job what’s the problem? I don’t believe you have to be on a low income to understand the problems of it – nor do I believe you have to be state-educated to be passionate about state education, nor a user of the NHS to “love” the NHS (as it happens, DC has been a user of the NHS). To my mind, reverse snobbery is just snobbery – and I think people will see through it a la Crewe and Nantwich.

I think the Conservative conference has undoubtedly been the most successful of the three. There is still work to do to cement the trust with voters and DC will be vulnerable to certain lines of attack. But I think he’s done enough to convince people he deserves a chance as the next PM.

The nine-point plan

I don’t think that daily polls tell us much of a story anyway but the news that the Conservative lead over Labour is back into single figures isn’t surprising or worrying to me.

Despite everything that has happened during the past 18 months, George Osborne’s speech on Tuesday outlining cuts that need to be made if we to have any chance of bringing the country’s huge debts under control, will have come as a shock to some people. They probably don’t read a newspaper or listen to the news and use the internet for other things. The simple fact is that not everyone is going to understand the context of George Osborne’s message – for some, it might become clearer later – others will never see the necessity for spending reductions.

Others will understand the message and will have decided that they don’t like it much. Included in that may be thousands of public sector workers who fear for their jobs. For them, the Conservative message could be pretty glum – although it’s a glumness that we in the private sector have had to manage for the past 18 months. Today in the FT, there is an advert for a Deputy Head of Internal Audit at the DfT for £80,000 + benefits and in the Local Government Chronicle for an Interim Change Manager at £35-43k. I could go on.

This stoking of the public jobs market that Labour has indulged in not only has to stop – it has to be redressed. There are, for example, 99,000 soldiers in the Army and 85,000 officials in the MoD. That’s the equivalent of each soldier having a 0.85FT official to look after their needs – it’s clearly ridiculous. And turkeys won’t vote for Christmas – what is important is the creation and expansion of alternative economies for people to move out of the public sector into.

If you put 40%, 31% and 18% into Electoral Calculus, you still get a Conservative government – albeit with a majority of four (the same nine-point lead for Labour produces them a majority of 124). But I’d rather have a Conservative government that will sort out our national problems with a razor-thin majority than a Conservative government that tells people what it thinks they want to hear with a majority of 124.

If people then vote for five more years of Gordon Brown’s denial and escapism, they will get everything they deserve.

Right on the money

Seeing the light? DC need to deliver the speech of his life - again

The technical problems on my blog have prevented a more in-depth following of the Conservative conference but here’s how I see it up to today. Firstly, I thought that Rachel Sylvester did a great piece in The Times yesterday on the mixed messages of the first couple of days of the conference. I can’t complain that there weren’t any policy ideas – in fact, there have been so many that the government has been forced to rush out some of its own - but the problem with policies is that they often contradict each other (“Tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime”, anyone?) Spread out, no-one notices but releasing them all so close together draws a more prominent relief of any inconsistency.

Having said that, what I’ve heard has been pretty sensible given the financial circumstances. In 1997, it was easy for New Labour to come up with big ideas and schemes; this time, with the country in economic dire straits it’s a lot more difficult. I support the idea of benefits being cut to fund education and training – it’s the difference between economic opportunity and economic slavery. I support a long-term view of working conditions that preserves pensions but needs us to work longer for them. I also support the measures that have been put in place to support small enterprises, which create wealth, jobs and investment in this country.

I’m delighted beyond all measure that the message that I have been telling everyone who will listen should be put out is finally being delivered – that after 12 years of Labour spin, spite, incompetence and centralisation spattered by the odd moment of common sense, the Conservative Party is the party who will be honest with voters, tell them about the pain ahead and take them through what is going to be an agonising Parliament. George Osborne isn’t my favourite member of the front bench – I’ve got far more time for Runnymede and Weybridge MP Phillip Hammond, who is a real asset and should be chancellor – but his speech yesterday was dead on the money.

And it was vitally, vitally important that he delivered a well-judged message in an appropriate way. There’s still a fair hint of arrogance about his speaking method but the content was absolutely right and I suspect the voters would rather vote for an arrogant man with good ideas than a humble man with no clue.

As Nick Robinson (who else?) points out, it’s a significant political gamble to announce cuts and tough times ahead but I think people are resigned to it and it will give the Tories acredibility lacking in the current government (and Vince Cable, who just wants to tax your mansion). This country, once again, needs to be rescued from Labour overspending by a Conservative austerity regime. Am I looking forward to it? No. It is fair that public sector workers will have to cope on frozen pay? No – but then I’ve not had a pay rise this year, either. Is it fair that they should lose their jobs? No – but this is Labour’s mess and they should remember that when they cast their vote.

Labour created tens of thousands of silly jobs in the public sector that were unsustainable to fund in the long-term. Now the party is over, those stuck in them are going to have to pay Labour’s debt. It’s a shocking betrayal – but I bet Labour (in opposition) won’t see it that way.

It is also interesting to note that despite the policies coming forward, we’ve had comparitively scant negative reaction in the mainstream media – let’s leave the Grauniad and Mirror aside. Instead, the BBC has contented itself with Chris Grayling’s mishearing of questions, the appointment of Gen Sir Richard Dannat and the When Boris Met Dave silliness on Channel 4 (although calling them mainstream is a little generous) tonight.

This reflects various things, I suspect. A quiet conference day in the build up to DC’s speech tomorrow – although this usually gives space for some criticism. There is also the realisation that the next government is almost certainly going to be a Conservative and journalists getting used to buttering up the other side. But also I think there’s an unspoken feeling at conference from the websites, papers and Twitter, that Britain has been buffeted, bungled and betrayed by Labour and that Conservative support might, as Rachel Sylvester suggests, be fragile – but they do actually have some half-decent ideas to try and restore our national self-esteem.

Purpose and clarity – there is still work to be done. But I think DC knows what needs doing tomorrow.

Not our problem

The press release below refers to the decision taken at Woking Borough Council last week to introduce a membership scheme for Woking’s centres for the community. This scheme will allow the council to better tailor the services it provides for users of the centres and offer them priority services – informal consultation ahead of the decision showed that opinion was generally positive towards this idea.

The cost of all this will be just £8 a year – or £4 for those in receipt of concessionary benefits ie those on low incomes in Denzil Coulson’s blog entry. It’s not much – and it doesn’t raise a huge amount of revenue but what it does is support the idea that those who use a service should contribute a small amount to its delivery. The amount charged in this instance not only reflects the ability to pay but also the group being asked to pay.

Contributions such as these will help the council meet budget targets. By opposing this scheme, the Liberal Democrats are voting to make the budget more difficult to balance. They think that subscriptions from the garden waste wheeled bin scheme should be used to offset this scheme instead – totally missing the point that the garden scheme itself, also, has to be offset. In fact, a willful ignorance of how to balance the council budget is beginning to characterise their messaging at the moment, with suggestions of new services and opposing any extra charging to increase revenue.

I’m minded of the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors’s Effective Opposition handbook, which says:

“Oppose all service cuts…no cut is going to be popular and why court the unpopularity that goes with the responsibility of power?”

Why indeed? Well, because unless you can handle the responsibility of power and the unpopularity that comes with it at some point, you’ve no place running a tap, let alone a council. Since the beginning of history, the placing of an extra financial liability on the population – or certain parts of it – has not been popular. But sometimes the responsibility of power has to be shouldered by those with the courage to understand that what is expedient is not always what is necessary.

The Lib Dem bible then goes on to say:

“You are NOT running the council. It’s NOT your problem.”

Correct – it’s the problem of every resident of the borough that an equitable way is found to ensure a sustainable financial settlement. I’ve been told to read Lib Dem literature and vote for them to find out about another way of financially modelling the council (is this the legendary “fourth way”?). Perhaps that’s true, perhaps not. But I’d rather not vote for any party that takes such a mercenary view of local authority administration – if they’re not in charge, it’s not their problem.

It’s yours instead. And that of those with the task of trying to balance the budget while maintaining a sense of proportion and fairness. Something that is, apparently, conspiciously absent from the Lib Dem handbook at the present time.

Talking to themselves

On his feet

I’ve listened to the speech, heard the reactions – from the breathless enthusiasm of the younger activists to the not-even-faint praise of Barry Sheerman on 5Live earlier, having trashed Gordon yesterday too.

The most telling reaction was that of @BBCLauraK, who tweeted that she wasn’t sure what the big message of the speech would be. The main message is this - I am Gordon, your leader and I have shown in the past what will happen to people within the party who stand up to my authority. I will take your ideas and pass them off as mine, I’ll demote you and brief against you as necessary. I am here to lead you into the next election whatever you may think and the political career of anyone who dares challenge me will be over.

It’s not a message to the country, it’s a message to his party. What the country will see, I think, is a leader whose party has been in power 12 years and who should have done many of the things he is now talking about – addressing anti-social behaviour, finishing Lords reform, looking after the poor and ensuring proper childcare provision – although what low-income households will do with ten free hours a week is a puzzler. The public will give little credit for catching up with them on ID cards and the recalling of MPs is a silly Conservative idea that will lead to abuses. Everything in his speech was tired, rehashed, borrowed – it came from anywhere but him as he lamely looks around for something resembling a “vision”.

The BBC seems to have been keener on the speech than most but that’s not surprising. There were good things in it – a National Care Service isn’t a bad idea on the surface. But where is the money coming from? Brown has already spent and lent the country to breaking point and we cannot even service the debt on borrowing at the moment. Spending cuts and tax rises are inevitable – so how on earth does he expect people to take him seriously with these uncosted ideas?

More likely, they are things that an incoming Conservative government will have to “cancel” – even though they are not started – and opportunities for the Labour opposition to capitalise on. It’s politics, but it’s hardly statesmanship from the Statesman of the Year. Once again, Gordon has delivered a speech for his party rather than his country and as the Labour Party becomes ever more inward-looking, those looking outward – such as Peter Meddlesome – will seem ever more lone voices.

I would prefer a PM who can look beyond themselves and foster real reform. But the only way to do that is to take on the Civil Service (which is letting Brown “cancel” ID cards because they know he won’t be around much longer). The New Labour project looked at one point like it had the better of the Whitehall blockers. But the battle has now been lost and Gordon showed today that he simply doesn’t have the substance to fight on, even if the heart is willing.

I want to hear DC tell everyone what the plan is. Let’s hope he’s got one.

Where’s the plan?

Hmmmmm...

Yes, Minister is full of allusions to the concept of “the less you intend to do about something, the more you have to talk about it” – no doubt I could find an episode and exact quote, but you get the picture.

During the Lib Dem conference, there was a clear picture – a narrative of where the Liberal Democrats wanted to go and what they wanted to do. They have a clear ambition and are aligning themselves nationally to the left with the intention of also being able to soften this to tempt away core Conservative voters. I don’t agree with it policy-by-policy but at least it’s there, it’s clear and frankly, it’s sensible.

But I’m searching the Labour conference in vain for a cohesive, collective and strategic vision. Gordon Brown has been banging on for ages about his strategic vision. Longer, even, than since he became Prime Minister. And the reason that the country has been allowed to drift is because Brown has never come up with this encompassing vision. After 12 years in power, Labour has been drained of the strength to reform government properly ie from the Civil Service upwards and instead now tinkers around with headline-grabbers.

On the one hand, Lord Meddlesome wants to extend the car scrappage scheme for cheap new motors - on the other hand, Ed Miliband wants us all to believe Labour will be serious about climate change at Copenhagen. Andy Burham can’t guarantee health spending while maintaining Labour is the party of the NHS, Jack Straw promises more support for victims but Alan Johnson wants to be tougher on crime – we’ve heard it all before.

Gordon Brown wants to end the bonus system – but he presided over it. And Meddlesome thinks that Labour are both the “underdogs” for the election but also that it’s “up for grabs”.

This is government by headline and they are desperate headlines at that. Ministers’ ideas are stolen by the Prime Minister to shore up his own teatering authority and the country is being run by a series of politicians positioning themselves for leadership after the fall of a man whose methods of internal control are by all accounts tyrannical.

It strikes me that this conference is more about the Labour Party than the Labour government. Perhaps searching it for a national vision is to mistake its true purpose.

Brown doesn’t get tough on Scotland

Further to this, this, from Tim Dodds‘s excellent blog. I don’t think I can put it any better.

It’s quite shocking and goes to the heart of just what the Labour government has become. There is no law without justice – Baroness Scotland of all people should know that.

Scotland gets tough on migrant

The best story of the day has to be the news that Baroness Scotland, who worked on leglisation to crack down on the employment of illegal immigrants, has fallen foul of the very law she helped introduce.

I can’t remember the last time a minister was caught by their own legislation. Her draconian drafting to fine those hoodwinked by illegal immigrants with seemingly all the right paperwork up to £10,000 – apparently discarding the old adage that it’s not a crime to be deceived – has rebounded brilliantly.

So will she be fined? Or is their some unwritten rule that the law shouldn’t apply to ministers? Would a member of the public in the same position escape application of the law in a similar way?

Her spokesman said she had “never knowingly employed an illegal immigrant”. Doesn’t matter. And that “She hired Ms Tapui in good faith and saw documents which led her to believe that Ms Tapui was entitled to work in this country.” Whatever. In addition:

“At no stage prior to the matter being raised did Baroness Scotland believe there was any question over Ms Tapui’s entitlement to work. Ms Tapui has now been dismissed with immediate effect.”

Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard that one before. Now, where do we serve the papers? Oh, you’re the minister, are you…?

Gone clubbing

I wasn’t at the Overview and Scrutiny session last night because it was the other half’s birthday but the Lib Dems called in the decision to create a club membership for those residents who use The Vyne and the other day centres around the borough.

The new system will provide benefits for club members and will only cost a nominal amount – £8 a year for goodness’ sake – and will allow the council to keep better information on who uses their services and therefore what their needs in the community may be. I can fully appreciate why the principle of charging for a hitherto discretionary will cause anxiety to some but the truth is that the council has been placed in such a difficult position by its lack of funding from government that it needs to look at whether non-statutory services across the board can be provided for nothing.

There remains a commitment on behalf of the Conservatives not to cut any front-line services in 2010/11 and this is a key priority for the group. To be fair to the Lib Dems, I believe that they are seeking more information on this for the best of reasons and the account that I received of last night’s meeting shows that they acted reasonably and without political malice by not insisting on a vote. I could, of course, be totally hoodwinked and the reason for the call-in may become clear in due course.

But the officers’ report shows clearly that we cannot sustain the day centre service for nothing. It is of course important that as few people as possible should be excluded from the services and details of how to deal with possible circumstances that might otherwise result in exclusion are being hammered out. It’s vital to get these right. But on the other hand

“It is clear from this information that the majority of Surrey Districts and Boroughs already have in place a Centres Membership scheme, although the way in which it is applied, and to what range of services, varies.”

is the officer view and it can’t be ignored.

It’s always painful to introduce a new charge but until we have a review of the way local government is funded, Surrey will pay the price of being a no-win area for Labour.

Update 16/9 : Cllr Denzil Coulson has enlightened us on his blog about exactly why this decision was called in. It’s apparently because we haven’t thought everything through properly. Well, it’s certainly important to think everything through so if the Lib Dems feel better about it all now for having the meeting on Monday, that’s fine. I notice that Cllr Coulson stops short of saying that the Lib Dems will oppose the card scheme pending the council meeting on October 1. So do they support it or oppose it?

Or, as usual, are they waiting to see which way the wind blows before they make a “principled” stand?