ben sutcliffe

With big national debates brewing over policy, it’s not surprising that MPs and PPCs are getting stuck in to debates and it seems that some of the scandal and “old politics” is making its way down to constituent level too. A recent Newbury Liberal Democrat leaflet summarised Conservative health care policy with the quote:

“We’ve lived through this mistake for 60 years now… The reality is it hasn’t worked – it has made people iller…” — Top Conservative Dan Hannan on the NHS

and the bullet point “Privatisation of some existing NHS services”.

Firstly, let’s clear up who this “Top Conservative” is. Dan Hannan is a Conservative MEP and journalist, and whilst he’s the top-dog in South East England for the Conservative representation at the European parliament, he’s no more than that. In fact he’d be considered a Tory back-bencher – he’s never been a Conservative MP and he’s not a PPC at this election. How the Lib Dems surmised that Hannan was a top Tory I don’t know, but perhaps Rendel, Day and their team have been reading the Daily Mirror too much.

Secondly, what’s the real Conservative policy at this election – as the party’s manifesto spells it out? Speaking on BBC Berkshire’s Andrew Peach show (from about 2½ hours) the Conservative MP for Newbury set the record straight on Conservative policy:

“the NHS is our number 1 priority in this election … we as a party are going to protect the increases in spending and continue to make increases in spending – we will make the NHS better. That is our policy, not what the Liberal Democrats are putting out in their literature.”— Richard Benyon

Benyon also criticised the Lib Dem’s aggressive tactics, reverting to the old politics that Clegg has said the Lib Dem’s offer an alternative too. This year’s Newbury Tory campaign has been, at least as far as I’m aware, slander free – just as Cameron thinks it should be. Perhaps the Lib Dem’s have changed only at the top, and down at the grass roots they’re still fighting dirty as they always have done.

There’s one more David Rendel lie out there. On his website Rendel states that “Only the Liberal Democrats will end the scandal of elderly people having to sell their homes in order to pay for personal care.” From the Conservative draft manifesto, published before Rendel’s post, “[the Conservatives] will introduce a voluntary insurance scheme so that people are no longer forced to sell their homes if they need residential care.” It’s not the “free personal care” Rendel wants, but he’s not from the only party addressing the issue, and I’d like to see how he thinks we can afford a National Care Service. Rendel needs to bring his campaign out of the past and up to speed with the modern Conservative party if he wants to offer the Newbury electorate an actual change. Right now he’s still fighting like it’s his first campaign back in ’93.

My closing remarks: well Tony Blair had three words to summarise his priorities, David Cameron has three letters – NHS.

Last night’s Ask the Chancellors on Channel 4 attracted a lot of media coverage, not only commentators slating George Osborne, but also praise for the increasing use of new political campaigning methods – similar to some of the techniques used by US presidential candidates. After the debate I was left feeling pretty excited about the election, and pretty confident about the prospects of my favoured political party.

Vince Cable came across really well throughout the debate, clearly being seen by both Darling and Osborne as the most knowledgeable and authoritative on economic issues. However, in the public poll running throughout the debate there was clear support for Conservative policies. Osborne appeared weak at times, and although he performed well it was not as strong a performance as that given by Darling and, especially, Cable. 52% of respondents to the poll, run by Yougov/Channel 4, agreed with the Conservative policy that we should cut the deficit now, rather than holding on – as Labour and the Lib Dems have suggested – which gained just 26% of the polls support.

There is then a massive image problem with Osborne, only 12% of respondents opted for him when asked which Chancellor they prefered. If it’s not image, then its the parties focus. Online the focus appears to be oppostion to other parties (mainly Labour’s) policies, or generating social media campaigns. Perhaps, just maybe, the focus should be on policy. When I talk to people about the election people simply don’t know what the Conservative party stands for. They’d vote for the party that would commit to cutting the deficit, but they don’t know which party that is.

The online campaigns are great, and pioneering sites in a similar way to the campaign of Barack Obama is a vote-winner, but Obama had clear policy to campaign with. We all know that Obama stood for universal health care, more people in to work, fairer mortgage schemes and legal protection for the average-Joe; just what does the Conservative party stand for?