Our answer to the recession: stop spending

In order to stimulate the economy during a recession, it is always best to encourage people to stop spending money and save it instead. [Are you sure about this George?] And so we propose tax cuts for savers. Hooray.

Now the naysayers among you might think that it would be a better stimulus if people went out and spent their money, that saving for a rainy day means spending those savings when you need them. And that tax cuts on income or sales might be more effective.

But let me ask you this. Do you really think we could get it that badly wrong? People of the depth and calibre of George Osborne and myself? Do I really need to say any more?

I’ve got six or seven people in the Shadow Cabinet capable of working in the government. The rest are useless.

Great news. My pals over at the spectator agree that some of my shadow cabinet are cabinet material. Compare this with only a few years ago when none of the tory shadow cabinet were good enough.

As for the rest of them. At least they make me look good by comparison. I love it.

I am Obama

Wicked. It's time for change, innit?

Bruvvers and sisters, my homie Mr Black Obama is the man. And soon I will be the man too.

We can bring about real change in Washington and Westminster. A new broom, not an old hand. Can we fix it? Yes we can! 

Whether it is the south side of Chicago, or the dorm room at Eton (Slytherin house), we have our roots in the community. We two true blues could hardly be more similar. In fact have you ever seen us both in the same place at the same time? There's a reason for that.

George Osborne writes...

My good friend, colleague, and all-round mini-me Gideon Osborne has this to say about the financial crisis:

I didn't get where I am today without knowing that the house will burn down if you don't repair the roof while the sun is shining. I will not beat around the mulberry bush. Gordon Brown is responsible for this. He is the ugly duckling that prevented the goose from laying the golden egg. There's no smoke without a fait accompli worse than death. But every silver lining has a cloud. We Conservatives are a different kettle of fish out of water. Unlike Gordon, I am not an ostrich who buries his head under a bushel. I will leave no worm unturned. I will strike while the bird in the hand is hot. So let's run it up the flagpole and see if the rats desert the sinking ship. The proof of the pudding is a horse of a different colour.

Ladies, and gentlemen, it is never too late for a leopard to change horses in midstream.

(tip, apols)

It's all Gordon's fault

Today I launch my fiercest criticism yet of Gordon Brown's role in causing the current financial crisis.

Mr Brown's strategy has fundementally failed to fix the US sub-prime mortgage market. His regulation of the UK banking sector has been inadequate, and unchanged, despite our repeated calls to make it even more inadequate. [Is this right, George?]

We need change to mend our broken economy. Labour cannot do it because they will not own up to their mistakes. We, on the other hand, never make any mistakes. Thatcher's deregulation in the 80s was completely different, honest.

Mr Brown is a complete and utter failure. New Labour has embraced free market economics without question, without understanding how it works. That's our job.

That conference speech in full...(again, again)

[Check against delivery]

Thankyou. It is great to know that everybody in the party agrees with me. It is not often a party leader can be this smug, or a party this craven.

Today we face a financial crisis. But we will not allow what happened in America to happen here. We will work with the government to pretend that we don't have a parliamentary system in which our "help" is no use.

But we must not hold back in being critical of the mistakes that led to this crisis, except those made under Margaret Thatcher.

The test for a political party is whether it can rise to the challenge of what the Times demands. And the other Murdoch papers.

The reality of government is not something I know anything about, but I will talk as if I did.

Let us be clear why we are talking about Afghanistan, instead of Iraq. It is because we can back the troops mission in Afghanistan 100%. With regards to Iraq we could, at best, equivocate.

And now even we are on the side of the Gurkhas.

These are times of great crisis [extra serious voice]. And people want to know whether their politicians are up to it. It isn't really about policies - which is good for us! It is about values and instincts.

Some people believe the Conservative Party is about freedom. But freedom must be tempered by responsibility. So we Conservatives believe in freedom for the rich, tempered by resposibilities for everybody else.

I know that my party can get it wrong, and sometimes other parties get it right. I hold to some simple principles: strong defence, one rule for some, sound money. Trust your judgement and your colleagues, even Gideon Osborne.

Tony Blair spoke of the 24 hour media world. But this is a country not a television channel. We have some bad policies for our long term future, and I am ready for that.

What matters more than experience, is having the character, and the judgement of of a shallow PR man. Experience is the excuse of everyone who wants to stop change - it was our excuse in 92 and 97, except it was right then.

The risk is not speaking in platitudes, the risk is that people won't mistake platitutes for wisdom.

The tap marked borrowing has been left on for too long. There will be a day of reckoning, but today is not that day.  Cry God for Harry, England and St George.

Gordon Brown has borrowed during the good times, and now the cupboard is bare - just like Lamont and Clarke in the 90s.

We will rein in government borrowing, you know what that means, it means whatever George said on Monday, when nobody was listening (with any luck).

I will ask all my shadow ministers to find extra spending cuts, although we probably won't be in power for two years by when the recession will probably have ended.

I believe in low taxes for the rich. So let me say this to the call centre worker, the hairdresser and the electrician. I know it is your money, and I want to give some of it back to people richer than you. But the real test is whether we can get elected before too many people notice.

Sound money, low taxes for the rich, simple beliefs for simple people. I admire entrepreneurs in bed every night.

I will build a high speed rail network, linking 4 cities, by ending investment in the rest of the network.

Labour think there is no such thing as society. You cannot run a country like that. We should know.

Labour treat people like children - we believe in only treating fat people like children.

In the European elections we will fight to resurrect the long-dead European Constitution by demanding a referendum on it.

The institution I care most about (after my family, the family, the Union, the armed services, the Bullingdon club...) is the NHS. I will talk about it for ages to make that seem plausible.

Some say our society isn't broken. I wonder what world Boris is living in. But is not just the crime, it is angry harsh culture of incivility. Thatcher's generation seems to have abandoned society.

There are those who say that what is required is to be tough on crime. And they are right. But let us all recognise that this only deals with the symptoms. I'm searching here for the right soundbite - something to do with crime and its causes.

The family is the best welfare system there is. That is why we offer tax breaks to those married and childless at the expense of unmarried parents.

After the family comes school, and the chance to talk about my family more. We will allow new schools more freedom, and old schools less freedom.

I'm going to quote some guy representing a spelling reform campaign, as if reformed spelling were actually taught in schools.

Only by failing to reform English spelling are we going to staunch the tide of social breakdown.

And finally, on benefits, we will end the something-for-nothing benefits culture introduced by Margaret Thatcher's extension of incapacity benefit.

This party has changed. This is who we are today, and those who disagree don't understand the power of platitude.

We are not only changed, but united. This means every single member has changed. And if you don't believe that we have a chip to implant in your brain to make you believe it.

Leadership, character, judgement, that is what the country needs now, and I only wish I had them. Thankyou.

Standing together with other parties in a crisis

At a time of financial crisis, we put aside our petty disputes, and form a team with our political opponents to tackle the crisis. I am determined that George Osborne and myself will contribute our ideas to the solution. Nick Clegg and Vince Cable too have their contribution to make. Vince of course was only chief economist at Shell, whereas George here was, er, is, er the Conservative shadow chancellor.

Here's how I see the team's division of labour shaping up:

Alastair Darling will draw up the legislation.

Vince Cable will say what should go in it.

I will cleverly suggest it happens slightly more quickly.

Nick Clegg will put forward relief plans for people in danger of losing their homes.

Gordon Brown will pretend he thought of that.

George Osborne will get the tea and biscuits.


You see this way, everybody's skills get used to the best effect. That's called leadership. I love it!

That's enough greenery for now

The new Conservative Party can take much pride in having talked about the environment and adopting a tree logo. But enough is enough. Having done our bit, and frankly riding so high in the polls as we are, we can forget all that stuff, and revert to form. Mind you, we're not in government yet, so don't think you have seen the half of it.

This is not of course our first u-turn on this issue. So now is the time to revisit those green taxes I proposed, and bring them up to date.

This is what I said last time:

• Tramps and beggars are an eyesore. Our new Tramp Duty of 2.5% will discourage them.
  
• Plebs with their rustly little cars spoil traditional English villages. The Hatchback Tax will put a stop to that.
  
• Windmills ruin the view. Our Fossil Fuel Obligation will reduce them.
  
• Hosepipe bans are a menace to lawns everywhere. We will start a hosepipe incentive scheme.
  
• People who have their cars follow them when they cycle are, er [are you sure about this one, George?]
  

Now you may be asking how one u-turns on a policy that is so vacuous in the first place. Ye of little faith, there is much we can do.

• Cheaper petrol
• More fossil-fuel power stations
• Greater dependence for energy on our Russian friends
• More airports

And it needn't stop there. When you are born smug like me, pissing away other people's future comes naturally. I love it.

Thou shalt not be morbidly obese

Politicians are too afraid to talk about moral issues today. And so we are facing an epidemic of knife, fork and spoon crime. And the poor. Don't get me started. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a poor man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Some people insist that morality is all about how you treat other people, that you should be free to eat and drink what you want. Not the Conservatives - we believe in damning you for your lifestyle choices. And we've never much liked the idea of treating plebs humanely, so we've got to have something to attach to the label "immoral" we so like using.

Public figures should not be afraid to use the concepts of right and wrong wrongly. Without the wrong idea of right and wrong, people might not always blame the victims. They might want the state to do its bit to give opportunities to people trying to lift themselves up. Don't they understand that we just talk about personal responsibility.

No, people shouldn't believe that the state will even try to solve their problems, because it won't. Not if I have anything to do with it. Personal responsibility means that we successful people can be smug about it. And if you are hard-working and remain poor or fat, there must be some reason for that, that we can still be smug about.

Farewell then, David Davis

Dear David,

Thankyou for all the hard work you have given to this party all these years. We all admire your principled stance on 42 days. A courageous move, as Sir Humphrey would have said.

It was perhaps a bit much for you to suggest that we should promise to repeal the measure once we are elected. You see that would be quite different. If we are in government, then more power for the state is all grist to the mill. It is only under Labour that these powers are dangerous.

You really shouldn't take all that "Liberal Conservative" stuff to heart. The words are opposites, you know; have you not read Hayek?

We wish you all the best in your by-election campaign, and hope to have you back in our parliamentary party soon. Or that MacKenzie fellow.

Best wishes,

Dave

Dave at large #1

Took the words out of my mouth

www.chickyog.net/2008/04/29/cameron-unwilling-to-keep-pmqs-vow/

“I will absolutely hold up my hand…this is a promise I couldn’t be bothered to deliver,” the Tory leader said."

I meant to say that bit under my breath...

A Red Light on Crime

Now listen to me boys and girls, I have had enough of all this talk about my dangerous cycling.

It is vitally important to the health of our democracy that a man can have a private life in the morning before he goes to work in Westminster. We shouldn't have to ask ourselves "shall I be leader of the Conservative Party this afternoon?" No indeed.

One-legged Lithuanian Lesbians

Of course it was not meant to come out quite like that.

My remark about one-legged lithuanian lesbians was not intended to convey and disrespect or hostility towards disabled people, lithuanians or lesbians in particular. No.

You see the modern Conservative party does not, like the Conservative party of old, represent only the interests of some able-bodied, british public school educated, heterosexual elite. We have realised that the electoral arithmetic means we must extend the boundaries of the recognised elite a little, and appear to extend it a lot.

And how do we tell these people that are only disabled, or only lithuanian, or only lesbian, that they might be considered for admission to this elite? By expressing how much better they are than anybody who has the misfortune of being all three!

I love it!

Hat tip: Cicero

You can't make it up

...apparently. Some common school is frightfully upset about this. But I will say this to them. It could have been your school. That sort of thing happens all the time among the unwashed masses, I happen to know, it says so in the Daily Mail.

And of course I know a thing or two about thuggery and vandalism myself. Perhaps this is the cause of the confusion. The boy in question was just angling for membership of the Bullingdon club. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hoo hoo ho ho ha gasp pant.

Rehearsing the unrehearsed look

OK there has been a lot of confusion recently about my speech. When I said that I would be making it up as I go along, I was not referring to the speech itself, which was of course well prepared as usual, but to conservative policies in general.

By policies, I mean of course the positioning exercises and general mood music we use to test the water and refashion our image.

I haven’t got an autocue and I haven’t got a script, I’ve just got a few notes so it might be a bit messy; but it will be me.

I meant of course that I didn't have a script in front of me, not that the speech was unscripted. A clever bit of spin, don't you think? And it was me. I hired the speechwriter after all.

Here was another bit, did you notice? I bet you think I am proposing lower taxes for married couples with children, right? Wrong. What I am proposing "benefits only a quarter of married couples across the board and, of those, less than 40% actually have dependent children."

I am so clever it hurts, sometimes.

That conference speech in full... (again)

Two years ago I stood on this stage and gave a speech about why I wanted to lead the party. Now I want to lead the country.

[10 minutes standing ovation]

20 years ago I was inspired by a trip to Eastern Europe - the dull uniformity, the lack of freedom.

Every generation of Conservatives has to make again the arguments for freedom, free markets and limited government, because the previous generation of conservatives will always have forgotten them once in government.

Our party has campaigned on the NHS, with no sense of shame.

It is not good enough being a one nation party to open the door - we have to drag the ethnics kicking and screaming into the party. But I am proud to have a muslim woman homophobe in my shadow cabinet.

Change, real change, isn't just about the pence in your pocket. It is understanding how to repackage Conservatism - opposition to change - for the modern media. We are not going to lurch to the left or right, we are going to lurch firmly into the past.

This government is always reannouncing old policies. But you won't catch me having any policies. Brown wants to appeal to the 4% in swing seats. How awful. I'm really shocked at that sort of thing.

People want the politics of belief. And we want them to believe us. That's why we're on the same side.

I believe if you really talk about responsibility, common sense and MySpace, for long enough, people won't notice you have not actually said anything.

Please sign up to 'Am I the only person who doesn't like David Cameron' on Facebook.

[Listeners all miss the next 15 minutes of the speech while they go to facebook and invite all their friends to join the group.]

We will say to Vardy and McDonalds, come into the state sector and drive up standards in our schools. But why isn't this working? Because professional teachers are not deferring to my superior judgement on the use of synthetic phonics. Let's get politicians' micromanagement out of education and get teachers to start doing exactly what I say.

One of the aspirations people still have, and rightly so, is the aspiration to own their own home. And we are going to pretend that minor changes to stamp duty will make a noticeable difference.

Oh and hasn't Brown made a mess of the country's pensions? It must be the biggest pensions disaster since the Tory mis-selling scandal of the 80s.

While our economy is getting richer, in many ways we are not going to get far being too optimistic - no we need to hype up the breakdown of society in order to frighten people into voting for us.

There are a million young people with nothing better to do than join groups on Facebook. Why has Labour done nothing about Facebook? Every day you hear some numpty promoting some Facebook group or other.

What are we going to do? Let's look at what works. In states like Wisconsin in America, where single parents are denied benefits unless they travel hours a day for minimum wage work, and hardly ever see their children. This is how we put families first.

The best welfare system of all? The family. If you think about it, it gives us a chance to wash our hands of the problem completely. And by recognising marriage in the tax system, we can further complicate tax credits, and punish widows and the sinful with evangelical zeal.

Anyway, we've got to scrap those top-down targets and trust the professionals in education the NHS.

The other feature of this Brave New World, is the sense of insecurity we feel, the end of the New World Order. When it comes to Iraq, we all want people to forget our culpability in supporting that war. I've been to Afghanistan for photo-ops with the troops. In this world of danger, the old politics is failing, as Mr Blair said when assaulting civil liberties.

I'm very proud to have Milosovic appeaser Pauline Neville Chamberlain in my shadow cabinet.

But we face new threats like climate change. We need to say that we are the party of sensible green leadership. Then people won't notice that we are doing next to nothing.

On crime, we will not be led by the need for headlines on the six o'clock news. This party is not a PR exercise, and I am going to pretend not to be a PR man any more.

So there you have it. I have told you want I believe today. It's about me. Am I up to it? Yes I am. I had inherited wealth, a privileged upbringing and went to a fantastic public school. But am I smug? I will let you be the judge.

After 10 years of Labour, I am as mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more. Everybody go to your window and shout it. So, Mr Brown, call that election. We will fight, but Britain will win.

Tories to carry on Blair reforms

As reported by the BBC, we intend to continue Blair's policy of reforming the public services, extending target culture and box-ticking to the furthest reaches of public services.

We will

• Issue all junior policy advisers with envelopes and fag packets on which to devise new targets for public services they don't understand
• Bring in new targets for the police, alongside quality payments for officers who advise at least 90% of crime victims to change their locks, lock their cars, and keep their valuables in a safe place.
• Raise standards of street sweeping with key Performance Indicators whereby street sweepers store before and after sample scrapings from each street in question so that cleaning performance can be analysed. All samples will be sent to a new Street Operations Directorate in Slough.
• Ensure satisfaction from teachers, with 5 page progress forms on each child to be sent home every week.
• Ensure that recyclable materials collected are in fact recycled with a system of asset tracking whereby each item of paper, glass, garden waste, etc, is barcoded by the householder.
• Introduce a Politeness Hotline where public servants who fail to smile and say "Have a nice day" can be reported, for re-education.
• And finally we will tackle the tendency of state grammar schools to turn out so many bloody oiks. Can't stand them. Every state grammar school child will be assessed for oikishness on a 100 point scale, with the worst offending schools top of the list for conversion to McVardy creationism academies.
  

I love it!

Where there's a will there's a whippet

I am delighted with the breakthoughs we have made in major northern cities such as Chester, Worksop and Todmorden. There were some, even in our party who thought that the northern cities might never forgive us for the relish with which Margaret ground them underfoot. But that is all over now.

In Sheffield, where we made massive gains of minus one, building a platform for the general election, voters are referring to our huge tally of votes with quaint admiring phrases like 'tha girt lump'.

In Manchester, where, frankly, we are quite irrelevant, we have held our ground. In Liverpool and Leeds we have lost no deposits, and in Blackley and Burnburn we have successfully lulled the other parties into a sense of security.

We are truly a national party once again. I love it.

Why vote Tory on May 3rd?

Why indeed. Let me tell you. Voting for us on May 3rd will maintain the rising tide of the Conservatives. It will give Blair a good kicking. It will give Brown a headache. It will give Ming something to think about. It will give me some reason to look and act as smug as I do.

Never let it be said that I am a vacuous PR man, that when I open my mouth nothing of substance comes out, only comforting noises, positioning and testing the water.

Never let it be said that Michael Howard has been the only Conservative leader of any calibre since Margaret Thatcher.

Never let it be said that you know nothing of real life if you have never been too poor to smash up a restaurant and buy your way out of trouble.

And if all that can't never be said without omitting double negatives, so much the better, or, er, worse.

Anyway, that's enough about me, this election is really about all those young people up and down the country who've had enough of Blair, and spin over substance, and puffed up PR people calling the shots. They want something different, er, anyway, they - we - want a new Britain - children playing in the streets again, motherhood, apple pie, cricket and free love (strictly as part of a normal student experience).

I love it!

Terribly sorry, won't get caught again

Well the stiffs at the Commons standards and privileges committee have given me a bit of a telling off over a bit of harmless influence selling.

Frankly, this is all a bit much. Influence is a limited resource, and the way for the market to allocate it most efficiently is if I sell it to the highest bidder. I'm sure Adam Smith would concur - didn't he say to always trust business people to influence legislation because they will have their own profits in mind at the expense of the common good. Something like that.

The Conservative Party has a long and proud tradition of representing the interests of the wealthy above all others. Yes, in recent years we have had a few leaders with inferior origins - Margaret Thatcher, John Thingy, the Foetus, Michael Howard. But even these plebs knew who to sell influence to.

And now we are back on track, representing in me the best and the smuggest the country has to offer, the little people are whining about standards. It is enough to make one lose one's rag a bit.

Er, terribly sorry, won't happen again, honest to goodness.

hat tip: Liberal Review