Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend Spring Forum this year, but looking on from afar I was impressed with what I saw. Unlike Labour, who are in dishonest denial about their decade of debt, David Cameron and the Conservative frontbench team have been open, honest and serious about the problems that face Britain in the years to come.
It’s clear now that the next Government must deliver more for less, and under a new Conservative Government that will mean some big changes:
- A return to traditional public spending control
- A new culture of thrift in government, including a contractual obligation on all senior civil servants to save the taxpayer money
- Curing our big social problems not just treating them, with our plans for school reform, welfare reform and strengthening families
- Using technology to transform the way public services are delivered
The age of irresponsibility is now nearly at an end. The next Government will have to take tough decisions and make difficult choices – but I cannot even contemplate the alternative.
“it’s destroyed the faith of many people in some of our traditional ways of life, in being independent, in being thrifty and saving for a rainy day, and those are things which you’re made to encourage.”
Margaret Thatcher Feb 1979
New Labour, New Conservatism or same old, same old….?