Yesterday at Conference, David Cameron made it quite clear that the party would not start outlinging tax cuts propsoals unless they were fully funded, and presumably water-tight against Labour spin-trickery. This is being billed as Cameron facing down the "Right" of the party, but I'd say it's more about him facing down the Radical, non-conservative, ideologues of the party instead.
The demands of this grouping for specific tax cut policies are utterly out of character with conservative principles. It's certainly true that low tax economies perform better and create more wealth. However, if we follow our principles then it's apparent that whilst we can make the case for lower taxes we cannot prescribe the solutions by casting them in stone now. After all, we have no idea what might happen between now and the next election. Not only would it be un-conservative to create tax cut policies now, but it would be pointless in the scheme of the passage of time.
We can only accurately make those decisions when we can know their measurable outcomes. That requires us to know the reality of the books for a start. What that actually means is that we should reject the radical's grand narrative theories as our justification for specific tax cutting proposals. Grand theories of society are what the Left use, and in doing so they fail to acknowledge the complexity of human interaction, engagement and endeavour. We do not want to go down that road because it is the road to dogma and inevitable failure. Having a desire to cut tax whilst also having the flexibility to not do so if necessary is the position of the the true conservative I would say.
There are of course some who will say this position lacks substance because there is no specific policy. That argument fails though because it is based on the bedrock assumption that one should use grand theories of how society works in order to justify policy. The reality however is that the position has its substance in its depth of principle. Policy for the sake of policy would play straight into the hands of Labour.
4 comments:
Well said Dizzy. There is absolutely no point in talking in details untill you are close to discovering what the books may hide , especially in light of a 10 year government spending spree. there is though a big hint of what is to come that not many seem to have picked up . Yesterday David Cameron , clearly said that he wants to change the way Big government operates and made few obvious examples of the waste it creates . It is implicit , therefore if you change the way in which the State operates , you curb government spending and end up being in a position of being able to cut taxes.
Yup, well spotted italiantory.
His reference to the "bean counters and penpushers of the Quango army" Clearly if he drops a large proportion of them and actually get the bloody civil servants to do the jobs I'm almost certain they used to manage pretty well before this collective of lunatics got the keys to the asylum a decade ago.
The savings on that alone with luck should be enable the Tories to pay off the no doubt mountain of debt that Labour inevitably leaves the nation in after a stint in power.
Then they can look to tax cuts.
As for setting out specific policy directions...no, no, no, NO, NO. Not until we are close enough to the election that we need it, and the Nu-lab drones can't nick it. I'm frankly sick to my back teeth of seeing classic tory solutions misappropriated and then mismanaged into bankruptcy, by B.liar and his cronies.
This has been their tactic so far, so it is good not to play into their hand. It is going to be interesting to see what happens once Labour lose their "useful idiot" , because without him the "misappropriation process" will become more complicated. Can you actually see John reid or Gordo catching to a Tory inspired policy and making sound credible?
I meant to say :Can you actually see John reid or Gordo catching on to a Tory inspired policy and making it sound credible?
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