Labour governments always leave a mess that the Conservatives have to clear up

"Steady the Buffs" but get those sabres drawn ready for the cut and thrust

I have been known to write comments on other people's blogs when the opinion polls have swung against the Conservatives to the effect that we need to hold our nerve and wait until we can see the whites of the enemy's eyes. It seems to me that the time has arrived for 'General' Cameron to order his forces to launch a full-scale attack.

I say this because it appears, according to the Press Association, that there are some rather naive folk who are so shallow and mis-informed that they would be willing to vote Labour if they thought the economy was recovering before Brown calls the next general election.

PA reports that: "The ICM poll for The Guardian suggests 8% of voters currently planning to vote Conservative or Liberal Democrat would consider backing Labour if the economy turned a corner. While the Tories are still 12 points clear, such a swing could be enough to return Labour as the largest party in the House of Commons."

We are now into the total-war phase of this campaign. It is the time to start slashing with those sabres and cut down all the lies, half-truths and spin that has characterised Labour for the last 12 years. And now is the time to implement the real strategy that will show the waverers that they are backing the wrong army.

Can we trust this man? Yes we can.....!

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Is George Osborne good enough?

If, like me, you rely on the MSM to provide you with a balanced summary of what politicians have said in a particular speech and assume their synopses are an accurate and fair reflection of what they actually said then, like me, you are probably only reading the headlines they want you to read.

So, take a few minutes to read THIS speech that George Osborne made to the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce last Friday.

Osborne has a lot of critics among Conservative Party supporters who see him as lightweight and lacking in the sort of experience that is required to become a successful Chancellor of the Exchequer. Whilst you shouldn't judge a politician's ability on the strength of one speech I believe that the clarity of his analysis and his vision for the way that the country can come out of this economic disaster created by Gordon Brown's mismanagement over the last 12 years makes him well-qualified to be the next Conservative government's Chancellor.

New Zealand PM says: "You Can't Spend Your Way Out of the Crisis"

Picked THIS up via ConservativeHome. My eldest son lives in New Zealand and helped out on John Key's election campaign last year and has told me that he is typical of the "No. 8 wire"* attitude that characterises the Kiwis as a nation.

"We don't tell New Zealanders we can stop the global recession, because we can't...what we do tell them is we can use this time to transform the economy to make us stronger so that when the world starts growing again we can be running faster than other countries we compete with."

That idea - growing a nation out of recession by improving productivity - puts Mr. Key and his conservative National Party at odds with Washington, Tokyo and Canberra (and I would add London, too). Those capitals are rolling out billions of dollars in stimulus packages - with taxpayers' money - to try to prop up growth. That's "risky.... you've saddled future generations with an enormous amount of debt that then they have to repay....there is actually a limit to what governments can do."

"...while the U.S. and Australia broadly continued their economic liberalization programs under both right- and left-wing governments, New Zealand didn't -- until now. Over the past nine years, Helen Clark's left-wing Labour government rode the global economic expansion and used the revenue surge to expand government welfare programs...and embrace causes like global warming. As a result, the economy stagnated....".

New Zealand is a relatively small country so direct comparisons with the UK are not always relevant but the general thrust of John Key's approach is not a bad model for our Conservative Party to follow. Read the whole article and see what you think.


*The old settlers always seemed to be able to fix any bit of broken machinery with a piece of No. 8 fencing wire!

Tax and spend: the weather starts to change

This blog by Iain Martin on Three Line Whip is very interesting in the conclusion it reaches that the public's apparent "views on tax and spending are undergoing a transformation and new attitudes are being forged in the furnace of financial crisis". This follows the latest ComRes's poll where they asked those polled how they would vote if the Tories advocated at an election a lower level of public spending than Labour and said "they would try not to raise taxes". Up rockets the Tory lead to 17 points (49-32-11).

I wrote something similar following an Ipsos MORI poll result back in September when the Conservatives breached the 50% barrier for the first time since Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister. "The key point.... is that by adopting a tax cutting agenda, coupled with talk of reducing public spending, he (Nick Clegg, Leader of the LibDems) has opened the door for the Conservatives to speak more openly about their economic programme without being accused of wanting to "slash and burn" the public sector."

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, when taken at the flood, leads on to greater things", to probably misquote the Bard (and split the infinitive)!

Can the Conservatives float the boat of public opinion and take advantage of this rising tide in their favour? Yes they can!