Comments on: Conservative economic policy

By: mikestallard

mikestallard — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:52:23 +0000

Bazman: I have been on the dole myself, and I never joke about it: it is abject poverty. You really are a second class citizen on the dole. Have you ever been there?
Many, many Conservatives have been on the dole.
Our problem, here at the grass roots under the Labour Party, is that we see our Grammar School costing £10,000 p.a., (State Comprehensive in Special measures) our BUPA hospitals well beyond our reach (NHS Hospital 20 miles away with MRSA probs), Old People's Homes costing the same as an expensive hotel, and the Police nowhere to be seen (I saw one the other day marching through the street dressed as if for Baghdad). If, for instance, my Mum needs to go into a home, I have to sell my house and throw myself onto the State for a roof.
We realise that the Labour Government has betrayed the poor, because, you see, we actually ARE the poor!
So let's have no more claptrap about how "The Conservatives have only ever understood the cost of social failure in terms of cutting benefits to the undeserving poor".

By: Bazman

Bazman — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 15:06:44 +0000

Nice one Dan. Why not just tax the poor more for being poor as an incentive to get rich as well as cutting benefits. Lets face it everything that ever happens is caused by oneself. Except if you are rich, then it is always someone else. The mind boggles as to this way of thinking. Maybe as a Doctor you could sterilize them too? The dole pays £60.50 a week for a single person. Give up work and live a life of style Dan, millions do.
The Conservatives have only ever understood the cost of social failure in terms of cutting benefits to the undeserving poor and really stretches credibility to ever think they will get it.

By: Dr Dan H.

Dr Dan H. — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:49:41 +0000

Here's an idea for you: try to break the link between breeding like a demented rabbit and milking the benefit system. A lot of the trouble we have at the minute from disaffected youth and so on is down to the benefits system rewarding the lowest paid and benefit scroungers for breeding, which leads to a surfeit of mostly unwanted children.

So, freezing child benefit to allow fiscal drag to cut it might work (the benefit-milking classes are generally too thick to understand fiscal drag, as Gordon has exhaustively proved) and would not get the Tories labelled as the Party That Hates The Poor; the resulting cut in costs could then be fed back as an increase in the tax-free allowance, as could completely abolishing the Tax Credits system.

The net effect should be to reduce the outgoings on welfare payments, preferably doing so without explicitly cutting the payments (to avoid the remnant Labour party heckling) but by shifting boundaries and utilising fiscal drag. This trick worked for Gordon Brown very well; no reason why the Tories shouldn't use it too.

By: TaDa

TaDa — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:36:35 +0000

Reducing the cost of social failure is a worthy ambition but I doubt there are any real policies to bring it about. The policies required are too radical or long term for either of the electable parties to implemetn.

The breaking up of state monopolies has not always been successful. Our energy and water requirements are now predominantly foreign owned and poorly invested in and our rail network appears to cost as much privatised as it did under state ownership. Not all privatisation is wrong – but it is not always the answer and when it does go wrong please put your hand up up and admit it!

Oh and the quest for reducing bureaucracy is started by every government (regardless of colour) and always fails – what will the next conservative government do differently to the last to reduce it?

Reply: This government renationalised Rail track and costs shot up as a result.

By: THE ESSEX BOYS

THE ESSEX BOYS — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 00:50:05 +0000

We're a pretty down-to-earth bunch of folks here and we gnash our teeth whenever we hear a minister – often the Prime Minister – boast of how much of OUR money he/they are going to spend on any particular project or 'initiative'. It's as if that alone guarantees success and shows what an excellent job is being done on our behalf. Bravowe're supposed to cry!

Why don't politicians do what we business blokes and housewives do? We work out what needs to be done, then we cost it and then we decide how much to spend. By doing it the other way round is it any wonder there is never an underspend and that departments and contractors use every penny pledged?

We have a motto that we would like to see the Conservatives adopt; one that cries out to be used when shadow ministers are put on the spot by scaremongering talk of 'service cuts'…

"It's not what you spend it's the way that you spend it
THAT'S what gets results"!!

By: mikestallard

mikestallard — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:56:38 +0000

I really do not know why the Conservatives who entered the Party Conference fresh with excellent new ideas and full to bursting with a desire to pull us back from the brink have disappeared somewhere.
Come on people, get out there! Have faith.
Read the blogs – we are all right there behind you. We really do want to know the way out of this quagmire and you really do have the ideas which it takes. We are getting more and more angry.
The next thing must be to reduce the huge, unnecessary government wastage which Mr Brown has encouraged under the "schools'n'hospitals bit. We all know that it is really wasted on 30 pages of Guardian advertisements.
It is not fair to tell us to stand out in the cold when the government is sitting there warm and cosy looking forward to its huge pensions.
So, less of the Spectator Lunches and booze ups, please, and a little more proclamation of the Truth!

By: Nick Gulliford

Nick Gulliford — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 16:48:40 +0000

I'm so pleased you agree with your 'Exactly' that, "The cost of social failure. Family breakdown ….. these social problems rack up the biggest bills for government, so we’ve got to get them down."

Ian Duncan Smith and Graham Allen have come up with a cross-party proposal for 'Early Intervention' [http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/client/downloads/EarlyInterventionpaperFINAL.pdf] including:

"Relationship and parenting education with all individuals, couples and families entitled to draw down money from a personal ‘budget’ to access pre-marriage, antenatal, and parenting (of 0-5s, 5-11s and teens) services. Additional streams also available for lone parents, prisoners, military and foster/adoptive parents."

To what extent do you agree this proposal will – probably over a generation – improve couple relationships and reduce the number of family breakdowns?

By: Robert Eve

Robert Eve — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 15:28:32 +0000

Just think how much we can save if we leave the EU.

By: Jonathan M. Scott

Jonathan M. Scott — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 14:08:58 +0000

I agree absolutely with your post. Saving money on these three aspects (particular given the human cost of social failure, e.g. the tragic murder of little Baby P) is crucial. Scrapping Labour spending plans is important, particularly in developing tax cuts which will allow people to keep more of their own money – also vital in these tough economic times. And stopping the tax rises on business (e.g. CGT, 1p rise in corporate tax etc) is a 'must do'.

We know that the tax and benefits system, through the poverty trap, disincentivises many people from entering employment.

The logical conclusion of current Labour social, economic and fiscal policy would be to disincentivise more people from working, and perhaps more worringly from starting a business and creating jobs.

By: FatBigot

FatBigot — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 13:22:30 +0000

The lack of apparent alternatives to Mr Brown's continued massacre of the economy has worried me for some time. "Wait and see" has its place because no one can put forward a serious alternative plan until it is clear what the government is doing. But the time has now surely come for a comprehensive alternative strategy to be put forward.

Mr Brown should not be allowed to continue peddling the lie that all was wonderful until America made a mess. The cry I hear regularly is "where has all the money gone?" A detailed and systematic attack on 11 years of throwing money down the drain is needed and will, I am sure, fall on receptive ears. Vague attacks on "waste" and "bureaucracy" won't cut the mustard, it must be detailed – how many millions went on a committee for this, how many millions on a consultation exercise for that.

Yesterday we heard a senior NHS administrator say that a restriction on spending will hit patient services. He must not be allowed to get away with nonsense like that. It must be made clear that those who manage the NHS's money must find savings among the paper-shufflers and will be removed from office if they do not do so.

Self-perpetuating bureaucracy is an albatross around the neck of our economy. Everyone knows it and people want it thinned drastically. It is a win-win approach for the Conservatives because it establishes that public services will not be affected yet Joe Ordinary on £20,000 will know his taxes will no longer feed bloated levels of unnecessary administrative windbaggery.