How very refreshing! How very exciting! Thank you Cameron and co for delivering such a bold and potentially revolutionary manifesto. Just seeing the stark difference between the front covers of the Labour and Conservative manifestos promised something original. Labour’s with its slightly Soviet undertone of a family gazing out into the sunset, and the Tory’s with a serious cover and a simple phrase: ‘invitation to join the government of Britain.’ Read on, and within the invitation there are some fantastically (and in some ways radically new) ideas on how our society should be run. It represents power to the people and is fiercely supportive of localism. It is a final public acknowledgement from the establishment of what we all know: that big government produces the worst results; is usually over expensive, inefficient and at worst curtails our liberty. Finally, a mainstream political party has come forth and said this.
But OK, let’s not get carried away. Firstly, there was still a lot of rubbish in there, not least the emphasis upon ‘protecting the NHS’. This seems to run counter to the themes of localism and reducing the state’s involvement in our lives. It was interesting to note that in his blog yesterday, Daniel Hannan reported that the Plan (a reference to his and Douglas Carswell’s revolutionary publication to renew Britain) had been implemented. He must know himself that although the themes are all there, this manifesto does not go anywhere as far as he and Carswell suggest in the Plan. Indeed, regarding the NHS, it could be said the respective views are diametrically opposed. Yet I must be patient; for all their rigour in argument, Hannan and Carswell are wrong. In practical terms, a revolution of this sort does not come in 12 months. Cameron and his strategists know that they cannot say, for example, that they would dismantle the NHS for fear of people saying ‘same old Tories, cutting public services’, (this has been key to the detoxification of the Conservative brand as I wrote a few weeks ago. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the Conservatives may not win the election and even if they do there is no guarantee that this revolution of society would actually happen.
But putting these reservations to one side, this was a genuinely exciting and, crucially, bold and risky manifesto. So much so, that there is a risk that the electorate may not go for this. The electorate has become so ultra-cynical about politicians and their promises that they may not buy this new message, perhaps least of all from the Conservative party. A party, that as I have said before, a great many people feel deeply cynical about. We shall see. But no longer can I criticise Cameron for simply regurgitating what he thinks people want him to say. Yesterday we heard distinct new ideas of how to fix the country and the society in which we live. Particularly towards the end of his speech, Cameron showed us that these are ideas of which he truly believes in and passionately wants to deliver on. At the least, for me he made politics exciting again.
I could be entirely wrong, but at the most, (and politics aside) I am hopeful that this manifesto could represent a genuine turning point in the history of how we run our society.
But OK, let’s not get carried away. Firstly, there was still a lot of rubbish in there, not least the emphasis upon ‘protecting the NHS’. This seems to run counter to the themes of localism and reducing the state’s involvement in our lives. It was interesting to note that in his blog yesterday, Daniel Hannan reported that the Plan (a reference to his and Douglas Carswell’s revolutionary publication to renew Britain) had been implemented. He must know himself that although the themes are all there, this manifesto does not go anywhere as far as he and Carswell suggest in the Plan. Indeed, regarding the NHS, it could be said the respective views are diametrically opposed. Yet I must be patient; for all their rigour in argument, Hannan and Carswell are wrong. In practical terms, a revolution of this sort does not come in 12 months. Cameron and his strategists know that they cannot say, for example, that they would dismantle the NHS for fear of people saying ‘same old Tories, cutting public services’, (this has been key to the detoxification of the Conservative brand as I wrote a few weeks ago. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, the Conservatives may not win the election and even if they do there is no guarantee that this revolution of society would actually happen.
But putting these reservations to one side, this was a genuinely exciting and, crucially, bold and risky manifesto. So much so, that there is a risk that the electorate may not go for this. The electorate has become so ultra-cynical about politicians and their promises that they may not buy this new message, perhaps least of all from the Conservative party. A party, that as I have said before, a great many people feel deeply cynical about. We shall see. But no longer can I criticise Cameron for simply regurgitating what he thinks people want him to say. Yesterday we heard distinct new ideas of how to fix the country and the society in which we live. Particularly towards the end of his speech, Cameron showed us that these are ideas of which he truly believes in and passionately wants to deliver on. At the least, for me he made politics exciting again.
I could be entirely wrong, but at the most, (and politics aside) I am hopeful that this manifesto could represent a genuine turning point in the history of how we run our society.
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