Simon Heffer ignores the reality of the position that Cameron finds himself in
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Dear Simon Heffer,
I find your Telegraph column to be a rather mixed bag. While I often agree with your demands, complaints and general narrative, most of which is aimed at the Conservative Party, I simply do not understand how you can ignore the political context surrounding the events that you describe. Your dislike for Conservative Party policy, Gordon Brown and George Osborne are well known, yet your solutions seem wildly out of step with the reality facing political parties: namely, voters are extremely nervous about their jobs and their homes, making the merest hint of radical policy a very dangerous tactic.
You, like many Conservatives, were happy but not ecstatic about the plans announced on Monday to prune public spending to provide small-scale tax cuts. Your assertion that this alone will hardly save the British economy is true enough. What concerns you is that you can see no ”intellectual ballast” underpinning Conservative economic policy. ”There is certainly no one so clear-sighted, so intelligent and so right as Sir Alan Walters, who died on Saturday. The Thatcher miracle was in great part shaped by him. Those who recall the transformation of our economic fortunes from the locust winter of 1979 to the moment, 10 years later, when Nigel Lawson threw his toys from his pram because of Walters’s attempt to have his Euromania curbed, will need no further evidence of his greatness. The recipes that he offered to his political patron, mostly on the importance of balancing budgets, would now have her successors fleeing in fear. But they were necessary, and they worked. We need a similar moment of courage.” I don’t know much about Alan Walters, having come into politics long after he left the public eye. What I do know is political philosophy alone doesn’t win votes. The move to help savers was political strategy at its finest, even though in pure economic terms it is a token gesture. Savers are being hurt by low interest rates, there are million of savers currently being hurt, the Conservatives announce plans to help savers which steal all the headlines and leave Labour playing catch-up, the public receives the message that the Conservatives are helping them, more people think about voting Conservative. Do you really think that the percentage of GDP required to fund changes to tax thresholds for pensioners’ savings is being debated in homes and pubs around the country? Of course it isn’t. Perception is reality in politics and this was an excellent move by the Conservatives.
You then turn your fire on David Cameron, who you suggest ”won’t be surrounded by people who weren’t at school with him, or who don’t show an immediate willingness to agree with his every word.” Perhaps you are right. He has his inner circle, which appears impossible to break into (or out of), and I don’t necessarily think that is very healthy. I agree that ”people are so angry with the Government’s mismanagement of the economy, and especially infuriated by its determination to ensure the private sector takes all the pain, that they are hungry for a sensible alternative.” In your opinion, ”there is a need for radicalism: what is more, it is the time. By that I mean that a coherent economic policy – rather like that outlined by the Tories in the year or so before the 1979 victory – will be treated with respect by an electorate that has had all the proof it needs of Labour’s incompetence and dishonesty.” This is where we fundamentally disagree. The last thing the Conservatives want to do right now is be radical. Even though the underlying economy might need something radical, the voters have become instinctively nervous about ‘radical’ action. Gordon Brown’s bailout plan was ‘radical’ and you rightly spotted the bounce that he enjoyed on the back of it, but think how badly Brown could be punished for his radical plan in 2009 if it doesn’t work. I absolutely agree that public spending should be the focus and that Cameron ‘held back’ with his policy on savings when he could have gone further. However, nothing could be more damaging for a party criticising an incumbent government for being reckless, irresponsible and ineffective than being caught with reckless and irresponsible policies themselves.
As I said at the start of this letter, your analysis must be placed in the context of political strategy. We both want to see the “rich” being left alone by politicians yet Cameron’s decision to explicitly state that his tax savings plan won’t help the rich still makes sense in the current context. We are both skeptical about pouring so much money into international development during this time of economic crisis yet Cameron was absolutely right to spare international aid (for now) as Labour have always impressed the voters with their phoney claims of tackling world poverty. Of course David Cameron should be showing leadership in these difficult times but the moment he sticks his head out of the trenches before his opponents have been defeated, he risks everything. I agree that George Osborne has shown himself to be a lacklustre Shadow Chancellor over recent months yet removing him from his job now would be an electoral disaster and undermine any confidence that the public have in David Cameron’s judgement and policies. I would love to see the Conservative put forward ”a policy of which Sir Alan Walters would have been proud” but I’d much rather see the Conservatives win the next election.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
Heffer is wrong in that the Tories didn’t come to power in 1979 with some grand vision that energised the nation. They made hay by pointing out that Labour Wasn’t Working and having a general principle of small government and lower taxes. They also had the advantage that Margaret Thatcher was breaking the mould just by being a woman.
They stumbled on what became their defining policy of privatisatioin when they realised that what we now know as BT had been starved of cash for so many years and bled dry to prop up Labour’s client state it was just about to collapse in on itself. Given the shortage of cash all round they needed something radical and, from my reading, the idea of privatisation was thrown in to a discussion almost as a last resort. The rest, as they say, is history.
That isn’t to say that I necessarily agree with your points as well. Marginal announcements like the reduction in savings taxes are hardly a demonstration of a political belief or going to make earth shattering changes in the economy. If David Cameron is going to capture the public imagination he needs to stop being driven by focus groups and headlines in the Daily Mail and develop an over riding philosophy ie small government and lower taxes.
He doesn’t need to commit to the detail now as we all know that sorting out the public finances is priority number one and it may mean higher taxes to start. The point is we want to know where he will take us after that if he wants our vote. He certainly won’t get mine if he continues to behave like a blue Tony Blair.
Furthermore, it is no use him dodging the issue of the size and of the state sector. Everyone knows its a problem and higing from telling the truth only panders to those who are on the payroll, and they are unlikely to vote Tory anyway.
I agree that the tax savings announcement was not earth shattering, but earth shattering announcements are exactly the kind of risk that he can’t afford to take. If he’d committed to taking off £20 billion in public expenditure before 2010, Labour would have torn into him and the public would be terrified about the implications of such a change – even if he had costed it. The ignorance of detail among voters cannot be underestimed, which is why Cameron should be focussing on the message and not making earth shattering announcements.
Cameron is already making the right noises about public sector pensions and public spending in general, but caution is still the right philosophy for now.
Maybe I’m a weirdo (okay, no maybe about it) but I don’t want eye-catching, earth-shattering policies. I want sensible solutions that propose rational policies, free from ideology and media grandstanding, that will leave our Country in a better economic state. If I want glitz and glamour I’ll watch Celebrity Come Dancing and vote Labour!
The Tories have to be so very careful as the media does them no favours on policy.Dave was asked to justify how he would find the money.
Being asked to explain where you would find a wallet full of cash, when the Prime Minister hasn’t had to answer where he would find a vault full of cash, shows the problem of opposition.
He should carry on mixing core and floating announcements and let the economy bash Labour’s clients for them.
It was a good announcement within the context of strategy as LFAT makes clear. He should have just tagged “Its the right thing to do” onto the end of it.
Fair point, Bill. I have no problem with him weaving in some hints of Conservative philosophy, but now is certainly not the time to start praising the ‘Thatcher glory days’ Heffer-style.
I’m not saying he should make earth shattering statements (I suppose that comment was misleading) just that what he has done, announce something that costs less than 1% of government spending isn’t really that big a deal. Neither do I want to see him making grand sounding Thatcher like statements, that was a different problem at a different time.
The problem with getting in to detail is that he is making himself a hostage to fortune. We all know that the economy is shot and probably worse that we realise. Many of us also think that the treatment that Gordon is handing out is likely to be making things worse, if not in the short term then definately in the long term. The danger is that when he gets in to No10 and opens the books they find the financial position is worse than they thought and have to abandon plans to make these cuts and possibly even increase taxes.
As you all say, the MSM doesn’t want to give them the benefit of the doubt so what will it look like if their first move is to renege on these commitments?
You make some good points but I really don’t see how moving Osbourne would be an “electoral disaster”.
Most people have no idea who he is, let alone what he thinks.
I think the NoW readers know who Osbourne is due to the near constant interviews with the S&M hooker from the Bullingdon parties.
You say that, Andrew, but do you remember how George Osborne found himself on the front pages for days just for talking with a rich Russian bloke?
Imagine what would happen if he lost his job….
(don’t forget that Mandelson and Campbell are back in town)
Cameron is in a tricky position. If he were to announce bolder, more radical Thatcheresque policies, Labour would either steal them or accuse him of reverting to being a nasty Tory toff, and the press would tear Cameron a new arsehole.
Instead, he is more cautious, and everyone accuses him of being a clueless, directionless suit. Actually it’s easy to forget that many of his tirades against Brown have been superb. And he genuinely does seem to hate the man.
I can appreciate his circumspection, but at some point he is going to have to step it up. Should he build up gradually, or wait till the election is announced, then go for it? Or not at all?
The Conservatives seriously need a leader bit more importantly, a way to preselect so that real young talent comes forward and moves up in the process.
Dave is not winning, Gordon is losing, for now. In the event that Gordon loses sufficiently for Dave to be the next Prime Minister, appears likely at the moment but not inevitable, will the country be better off? I wonder. Tory policy appears little different to Labour and there is no indication that competence is any better. We could finish up worse off and the Tories out of power for a very long time.
What is required are clear statements of Conservative policy and long term aims with the arguments to justify them followed by a plan of how to get there from here. Only then should these, possibly eye catching, bits be revealed along with how they fit into the grand plan.
I am a pensioner, not poor but not rich either, a long way from paying surtax. How is this latest wheeze going to make a significant difference to me? Interests rates are near zero so the increased tax relief will be negligible. The increased age relief will be clawed back, just as the present relief is. Should he also exempt dividends the effect might just be noticeable but in the present climate few, if any, companies will be paying significant dividends. Appears to be copying New Labour, all headlines with nobody actually benefiting.