The position of Mr Osborne must be that they he agrees with the socialists: that the state can spend money more wisely than individuals. This is the policy he has embraced. So what is the point of the Conservative party if they have no fundamental disagrement with new labour.
How would a Cameron Conservative government be different to a Brown Labour governement.
Both parties , by and large, embrace high taxation, public spending and mass immigration. But surely the Tories are strong on Europe ?. Aah i just remembered that it was John Major that signed the Maastricht treaty so how can we trust you on that ?.
It's so depressing that anyone who want's a real change at westminister has no real hope of change at the next election even if Mr Cameron wins.

Simply demand that car parking money raised in "X" town stays in that town, that sounds better than the usual council response of "car parking money keeps your council tax down".

I was then appalled to hear a representative of the Local Government Association (Conservative controlled) on this morning's Today programme to argue against the supposed Government prohibition on fining residents for incorrectly filling one's dustbin. Some Tory Councillors have only been in for five days and are going native already. Such a policy smacks of being officer-led rather then elected member led. Even the East German Stasi didn't fine one for having the wrong type of rubbish (they may have searched your bin but that's it)

It is not the roll of Conservative Councillors to obey the dictats of the un-elected EU or to be proxy managers of Government policy.

If I was a conservative politician this would be my roadmap for genuine reform in local government – and after the general election, for central government too.

Reply: There will not be consistency – the national Conservative party does not dictate to every Conservative Council what it has to do. Those of us involved in designing national Conservative policies recommend but cannot command. It is national policy to cut out wasteful spending and offer value for money, and national advice to run weekly collections of rubbish.

The predicatble effect is that even the stupidest and most unworkable 'initiatives' often get implemented and quality of service suffers for it.

The way it seems to work is that Gordon Brown commissions someone to do a big policy review along with a team of faceless civil servants. He accepts the findings of the review and then delegates the implementation to a central government department. They then set up a new quango to take over the implementation of the review and more policy documents are written up directing local authorities how to work. Budget is then announced to hand out to local authorities and senior managers bid for the money, offering to implement the policy.

The money is then syphoned off at the top into education or social services and the service that the policy relates to is left with less resources as they have to plough time and effort into working on the latest dictat.

Reply: I posted them here so all can read them, and I have also put on as a download my presentation to Conservative Councils on how to manage.