Re: The United Kingdom Elections 2010
an interesting article that takes the tory's to task for not spelling out their vision, and examines why they are afraid to reveal that vision:
The Conservatives have the vision but not the nerve
David Cameron's Conservatives have a compelling plan for government, but they are too fearful to spell out what it is
By Janet Daley
Published: 9:00PM GMT 27 Mar 2010
Believe it or not, the Conservatives actually have quite a compelling vision for government, in which spending cuts could be made to play a constructive role, public services would be more responsive to the real needs of the people who use them, and the state would be an enabling force rather than an oppressive one. Honestly. The reason that you are almost entirely unaware of this philosophy is because the party thinks that you will either be frightened by it or that it will be too difficult for you to understand.
Very occasionally, they allow you a glimpse of an aspect of their programme: Michael Gove's plan for "free schools", or the "co-operative" model in which public agencies would be run by their own staff. But then some television interviewer starts to ask wider questions, or a Labour frontbencher tosses out some predictable, brain-dead jibe, and the shutters come down.
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The Tory spokesman who had, ever so cautiously, begun to hint at what could be a genuinely progressive new relationship between the state and the people, scurries away into the darkness again, like a small animal terrified of being caught in the open. The result? The Tories look vacuous: like a party with half-hearted convictions, half-baked policies and with no overarching theme to distinguish it in any fundamental way from Labour. And so, ironically, a leadership that is so afraid of damaging questions leaves itself wide open to the most dangerous ones of all: what real difference is there between you and your opponents, and why should anyone be inspired to vote for you?
You may be asking yourself at this point whether the patronising assumption that you are either too timid or too dumb to grasp the potential of this message is actually justified. Who are the real cowards here? Is the Conservative leadership like some cartoon character who runs away from his own reflection in the mirror because he mistakes it for a bogeyman? Is the story that the Tories could be telling – their "narrative", in fashionable terms – really so terrifying or awesomely incomprehensible? Let's try putting the argument in simple terms and see how many of you run for cover.
First, governments run things very badly. They presume to know more about delivering services than the expert professionals they employ, they waste money on bureaucratic oversight and they play party-political games with vital areas such as education and health. So by cutting back the power of central government and making the agencies that deliver services accountable to the people who use them rather than to politicians, we would get better, cheaper and more productive results. Everybody still here? Good.
Second, the more power and authority that the state seizes, the less people feel the need to take responsibility for themselves and for each other. Many of the problems that now corrode the quality of life in Britain – anti-social behaviour, irresponsible parenting and the feckless refusal to accept any idea of civic duty – have their roots in the emergence of government as the only source of moral authority and the only provider of social protection.
Communities, families and individuals, whose ethical judgments are likely to be more sound and more effective, have been dwarfed by the gargantuan intrusiveness of this expensive, impersonal monster which, as often as not, interferes without understanding and meddles without sensitivity. So by pulling central government's tentacles off the most personal and local areas of people's lives – by giving them the power to run their neighbourhoods, schools, health services and benefits agencies according to their own priorities – we can restore self-determination and pride while improving public services.
Do you find this concept so difficult to grasp? Does it not, in fact, seem consistent with your own experience of real life? You know that you are likely to get much better and more attentive service from a small local business which is eager to please you as an individual than from a huge corporate outfit which sees you as nothing more than one tiny digit in its annual turnover. When it comes to public services, the independent local outlet could offer a relationship of trust, familiarity and understanding to the consumer, and greater efficiency and productivity to the taxpayer.
What's not to like? Why is the party so timorous about pitching this solution proudly and robustly? Because it is afraid of Labour (and its media friends) shrieking "postcode lottery", "pushy parents", "middle-class privilege" – of any suggestion that its programme would endanger what Labour calls "fairness". If services become accountable to communities then by definition they may vary, and so the informed, the conscientious, the "privileged" may get a better deal. Only central government, the Left argues, can enforce uniformity and prevent disadvantage.
This is normally the point in the argument when the Tory spokesman loses his nerve. Unable to assent to anything that would repudiate "fairness", the party retreats on to Labour's ground instead of standing its own. What it could be saying is, "Let's look at how successful Labour's approach has been. Has central government, with all its determination to deliver social equality, actually reduced deprivation and increased opportunity for the poor?" No, it hasn't – and the figures exist to prove it. Inequalities of educational achievement, health outcomes and earnings have not diminished under Labour. So maybe the overweening, overspending, over-intrusive state isn't the answer. Perhaps, contrary to paternalistic, Left-wing myth, it is poorer communities that would benefit most from local self-determination. Perhaps deprivation is as much linked to passivity, defeatism and despair as it is to material poverty, and giving people more responsibility and power over their own lives would enable them to see a future for themselves that was not hopeless.
But telling this story takes nerve, and unblinking fidelity to core beliefs. That means having the confidence to reject Labour's language and its shibboleths: the word "fairness" must be reclaimed to mean that people who work hard to improve their own lives and those of their families should not be treated as if their efforts were a form of social theft; "equality of opportunity", which means that everyone gets a fair chance, must not be confounded with "equality of outcome", in which everyone gets the same whatever his merits. This is a truly liberating solution to the country's problems that could make Gordon Brown's class war look as reactionary and vindictive as it is. The Tories have a week or so in which to decide whether they are proud of it.
i would happily support both this and DC's six EU pledges, but as long as they remain so nebulous i lack the trust that he really intends to implement them, this is serious change that needs to be on an election manifesto.
twelve months down the line when the unions start to object to this plan and cause national strikes, cameron needs to be able to turn around and say i have the backing of the people for this, because otherwise he won't be able to crush union resistance.
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Originally Posted by Banquo's Ghost
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