UCL Conservative Society

Today, Serene, Richard Jackson and I were lucky enough to be invited to attend a policy announcement by David Cameron on Tory spending commitments. George Osborne was also in attendance and I believe I also spotted Phillip Hammond, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, nipping around.

The speech itself was a fairly simple abandonment of previous policy, which was to follow Labour spending plans until 2010. These have now been marked down as too debt-laden to possibly follow through. Cameron indicated that there would be spending increases, just simply not in line with those which Labour have planned. He also cautiously opposed unfunded tax cuts and for the most part attacked Gordon Brown’s upcoming plans to borrow somewhere in the region of £30 billion.

Overall, the speech was greeted with luke-warm reaction but there was a real problem; Cameron’s lack of commitment to a specific spending plan. (Edit. Interestingly enough, whilst the journalists in the room seemed skeptical and the present tory faithful weren’t blown away, the blogsphere seems to have lit up with delight at the announcement.) He regularly cited the fact that we still hadn’t heard the Pre-Budget Report and thus couldn’t concretely say much as a reason for his slightly hazy ideas. I was a little concerned about this.

Whilst, he seems to have generally the right ideas, I don’t see why he can’t commit himself to something more substantial. If he is now abandoning Labour spending plans then why do we need to know the ins and outs of their spending policies? He surely knows the jist of Gordon’s tax cut plans, in terms of the amount they will cost; he could site £30 billion of debt for one thing. Moreover, he can surely obtain growth and inflation figures from sources other than the PBR. Whilst such estimates may not match those in the PBR, this hardly means that they will be wrong - look at Alistair Darling’s growth forecasts for this year! Government estimates aren’t always correct.

Overall, Dave and George can and need to come up with more than just these ideas. Figures can be adjusted and I doubt that any difference between party estimates and the actual state of the economy would be so great as to require a total rethink. I have no doubt that the front bench will come up with a sound set of policies in the longer term but they need to get their skates on before we are totally outgunned. A poll today put the party only 3% ahead of Brown’s gang…

Find a full copy of the speech here:

http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2008/11/David_Cameron_The_choice_on_borrowing.aspx

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