Labour want to overthrow capitalism, here’s what May and the rest of the Conservative Party can do to stop them
Ten years after the financial crash, the Tories are still offering penny-sized solutions to pound-sized problems, says Tim Montgomerie, founder of .
I’M a Conservative. I’m a believer in free markets. A treasured photograph of me and Margaret Thatcher hangs on my wall.
But, yesterday, I found myself agreeing with much of the speech that Labour’s Treasury spokesman, John McDonnell, delivered to his party conference in Liverpool.
I nodded when he said: “It cannot be right that 5,000 of our fellow citizens are sleeping on our streets.”
I nodded again when he attacked businesses that “avoid paying their taxes on an industrial scale.”
I almost clapped when he condemned the “vast executive salaries” of many fat-cat bosses.
And most of all, I agreed that “it’s no wonder so many people voted for Brexit. They voted for any form of change”.
You don’t need to be Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes or even TV’s heroic new mystery-solver, Sergeant David Budd of Bodyguard, to understand why voters are hungering for change.
It now costs £70 to fill the petrol tank of the average family car — compared to £50 two years ago.
Large annual increases in rail fares always arrive on time but the same cannot be said for the trains.
Meanwhile the super-successful Starbucks coffee chain only pays a three per cent tax rate.
The income of the bottom third of workers is still shrinking but the pay of boardroom executives is rising again and it’s rising quickly.
“Quick” is not a word I would use to describe our Conservative government.
Ten years after the financial crash the Prime Minister and her Chancellor of the Exchequer are still offering penny-sized solutions to pound-sized problems.
Last week, for example, Mrs May announced a plan to build 40,000 new council houses and affordable homes. 40,000 wouldn’t be enough to satisfy one year of demand but her promise is to deliver that number over seven years.
Even when the Government comes up with half of a good idea it can’t seem to get to the finishing line.
The Tory manifesto promised to cut the National Insurance bill for “White Van Man” and other self-employed strivers but two weeks ago Mr Hammond’s black Jaguar U-turned and he cancelled the tax cut.
Brexit is often used as an excuse for the Government’s snail-like pace but it’s not a good excuse.
Ministers such as Michael Gove in the Environment Department and Sajid Javid at the Home Office prove as much.
Gove is boldly tackling plastic waste and Javid is bringing back common sense to immigration.
There are also rare occasions when the Government has shown it can do the right thing.
Eleven million households will save up to £120 a year on gas and electricity bills, for example, because of the energy price cap that Greg Clark, the Business Secretary, fought to deliver.
In less than a week it will be the Tory Conference in Birmingham and I want to be able to nod and clap when Philip Hammond and Theresa May speak.
I have three suggestions for them.
First of all they must show that they are the party of the little guy as much as big business.
They can do that by cancelling planned corporation tax cuts and using the money to reduce the price of petrol.
Idea two would scrap or at least postpone the HS2 train project which is getting more expensive with every passing month.
Use the savings to fund better local rail and bus services — improvements that will be noticed by the time of the next election.
And, most of all, build many more affordable houses. Tories should match Labour’s promise to help people own the companies they work for by giving young families the chance to own their own homes.
It was bad enough when folk ran out of money at the end of the month. Many families are now having to watch the pennies at the beginning of the month.
Finding ways of helping such families isn’t just or mainly about saving the Conservative Party.
It’s about saving the free enterprise system that has given us smartphones, new painkilling medicines, safer cars and so many other life-changing technologies.
We must not allow Mr McDonnell’s rosy red words in Liverpool to hide his deeply dangerous desire to “overthrow capitalism”.
While capitalism has its weaknesses it is better than any other economic system in world history but it is badly in need of reform — something the Tories have failed to do.
The common theme of all of McDonnell’s national- isation, regulation and high taxation policies is one big idea: That “politicians know best”.
The problem is — they don’t. Politicians are not as good at running businesses as business people.
They are not as good at investing as people trained to run pension funds. Politicians worry too much about opinion polls and what is said about them in newspapers, on TV and on Twitter.
As a result they are more selfish and more short-termist than many of the people they criticise.
Time is running out for Theresa May’s government to stop the country falling into the hands of a very dangerous Labour Party.
If you consider it unthinkable that Jeremy Corbyn could become Prime Minister then I invite you to look across the Atlantic and remind you that Donald Trump is US President.
Many thought that was unthinkable.
Again and again and again we are seeing moderate political parties defeated whenever they prove unable to deliver change to electorates that are hungry for a better life.
The Tories can’t afford to wait until the eve of the next General Election to deliver for struggling voters.
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Seeds need to be sown at next week’s Conservative Party Conference.
And if Mr Hammond and Mrs May fail to sow those seeds, Tory MPs need to replace both of them and get a Chancellor and PM who will. And they need to be quick about it.