Bill's Comment Page

Iain Duncan Smith is not a man capable of being Prime Minister

I've now had an opportunity to study the text of the Conservative Leader's speech in full and to watch some video clips of parts of it. It is clear to me that whilst it was most certainly a rousing speech, its effect will be merely to reinforce the faith amongst many already-existing Conservatives. I cannot see it will attract people who have not voted Conservative before.

Or attract back people like me who used to vote for them.

The Conservative Party still appears to want to talk only to its own supporters. You can read the full text here. It still seems to believe that if something is repeated often enough that people will be won over. Well, under this Leader at least, it ain't ever gonna happen (in my humble opinion).

Granted there is growing disillusion with Tony Blair's 'New' Labour government, but the Conservatives seem to have nothing genuinely new and credible to offer. For example:

Promises on tuition fees and police numbers Students won't leave university saddled with a £30,000 debt… We'll scrap Labour's tuition fees and we'll stop top-up fees, too. Violent crime and disorder have rocketed under this Government… And the asylum system is a disaster – spiralling out of control. While Tony Blair travels the world, the world is travelling here. As Oliver Letwin has pledged, under the Conservatives there'll be 80,000 fewer asylum seekers – and 40,000 more police officers. That's twelve more police forces the size of the Lancashire Constabulary.

and

Promises on pensions So we will raise the basic state pension, in line with earnings…to ensure that future generations of pensioners never have to go begging for social security. The abolition of the means test is supported by the savings industry. It's supported by millions of pensioners. And it's supported by me. Most important of all, it's the right thing to do.

Now I can't say I quarrel with any of this.

There is just this nagging doubt, though. How is it to be paid for? Well, here's how:

Promises to cut taxes and spend money better The greatest cause of increasing tax is increasing waste. 70% of taxpayers think Labour wastes their money. And they're 100% right. This Labour Government will never give taxpayers value for money. But Conservatives will. In local government, Conservatives already deliver better services for less tax. As Michael Howard said yesterday in his excellent speech, Conservatives believe in low taxes. We will always be a lower tax government than Labour. And yes… We plan to cut taxes.

Now I am very sure that there is a great deal of waste in the public services, most notably in the grotesque over-manning (and over-management) in the National Health Service. The NHS exists primarily to provide health treatment to citizens, not for the purpose of providing employment for over a million people - a fact socialists seem to overlook.

However, the pretence that ALL the additional expenditure the Conservatives are promising can be paid for by more efficient use of the resources supplied, whilst STILL cutting taxes seems far-fetched to me. And it doesn't take into account the fact that many recipients of Blair's grotesque 'tax credits' (families and more recently, pensioners) are hardly likely to vote for a Party which is promising to cut or abolish such things.

The political reality is that we live in a country where everyone has a vote - and I wouldn't want it any different! But a consequence of this is that those parts of the population that generate net wealth are electorally hugely outnumbered by those who are net consumers of assets, in tangible financial terms. The 'right to buy' very successfully tapped into the self-interest of many council home residents who had aspirations to own their own homes - quite apart from the other seemingly minor, but hugely important, factors such as the complete abolition of exchange controls soon after the Conservatives last came to power in 1979, which allowed ordinary people to escape from the socialist straitjacket of strictly limited spending money whilst on holiday abroad.

There is nothing equivalent in IDS's speech today to galvanise the support of wide swathes of the population in support of the Conservatives.. Just scare tactics designed to appeal to the xenophobes who lurk amongst us:

Appeal to xenophobia Think about it. Our country: no longer able to control immigration. No longer able to choose its allies. No longer able to use British soldiers to defend our interests abroad. Unelected Commissioners would have the final say in almost every government department – affecting every aspect of our daily lives.

The fact that we've been members of NATO for over fifty years? The fact that, in the successful Falklands campaign, the discreet satellite reconnaissance intelligence supplied by the US was invaluable. Not to mention the technical information discreetly supplied by the French about the sophisticated missiles they had supplied to Argentina, and which represented a real danger to our ships.

And I'm afraid that Mr Duncan Smith simply doesn't have the charisma to carry it off. It's all very well having a carefully-crafted speech delivered with the benefit of extensive rehearsal to a largely supportive audience at a Conservative Party conference. It's a different matter being able to cope with the cut and thrust of lively House of Commons debate and Prime Minister's Questions - situations in which he has shown little credibility. I suspect the Conservative Party is doomed to stick with Duncan Smith until the next election, though, if only because like ferrets in a sack they will never agree on who might more sensibly lead them and I doubt very much if Michael Portillo or someone like him could be tempted back whilst illiberal social thinking still seems to govern the Party's parliamentary agenda, whatever it may try and say in speeches by Theresa May.