Last week in Manchester, the Prime Minister reminded us of the Conservative Party’s commitment to hardworking people: from supporting young people to buy their own home to getting the long-term unemployed back to work; from freezing fuel duty to backing marriage in the tax system; from cutting the deficit by a third to creating 1.4 million new private sector jobs.
The vision that the Prime Minister outlined was one of a land of opportunity, in the country that: wrote the Magna Carta; established the first Parliament; led the abolition of slavery; gave women the vote; and safeguarded the freedoms of other nations across the world.
The message was that this greatness is not just our heritage but also our future – from our music to our world leading universities; from our football league to our sense of tolerance – epitomised by Team GB’s performance during the 2012 Olympic Games which saw our ‘small island’ finish in third place with 29 Gold medals and 65 total medals.
David Cameron’s speech was an honest appreciation of the struggle that these last three years have been but also a pledge to finish the job – the economy may well be turning the corner, however, Labour’s debt crisis still needs to be paid off.
With recent economic growth, Labour’s Party conference saw them stop talking about the debt crisis and start talking about the cost of living crisis, as if one was not directly related to the other.
If we are to avoid the example of Greece by tackling the debt crisis then the job means sticking to the course, not throwing away the hard earned progress that has been made, and seeking to run a surplus to protect us against future economic turbulence. Labour’s pledge of more spending, more borrowing, more debt demonstrates that they have clearly learned nothing.
The Prime Minister lamented that Labour’s approach is that you should not expect too much from the poorest kids; do not ask too much from people on welfare; and that business is the problem, not the solution. In the Conservative Party we say: that is just wrong. If you expect nothing of people, that does nothing for them. Yes, you must help people – but you help people by putting up ladders that they can climb through their own efforts.
The job is not just about clearing Labour’s mess, therefore, but instead about building something better in its place. Quoting the words of Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister said: “We are in the business of planting trees for our children and grandchildren or we have no business being in politics at all.”
Henry Smith MP