Monday 4 April 2011

Who will be the next Conservative leader?

'Thing is it ain't going according to the script', his economic policy seem flawed, his reforms of the NHS are going pear shape, and he is likely to see his party suffer heavy defeat at the polls in May. But worse of all the squeezed middle are beginning to revolt. David Cameron made a big mistake, he told them to grow up, and they did by discovering their right to protest.

We are told the NHS reforms are the largest since the NHS was founded. But they can’t be can they? - as these current reforms only affect England, whereas when the NHS was founded it improved health service throughout Great Britain.

Some say this the beginning of the end of the NHS as we know it, and that it will eventually lead to a privatised NHS, something the Conservatives fervently deny.

In a previous post, I said the NHS reforms were a big gamble for David Cameron, and it seems I was right. Now instead of listening to the people, many of which are unhappy with the proposed reforms, he and his mate Nick Clegg are about to embark on a sales drive, where they will tell us that they are right and we are wrong.

'Trust us' they will say, 'these reforms are right and necessary'. An often repeated phrase in the face of opposition - its right and necessary, or code for we are right, you are wrong.

In terms of the economy, even senior Conservatives are talking about a period of stagnation; Ken Clarke and Oliver Letwin to name just two, before 'hopefully' the economy begins to recover.

The difference in 'cuts' between what the Conservative led Coalition Government are implementing, and what Labour proposed (over the life of the parliament)- not that great, especially as a percentage of the governments overall debt (which will not be reduced, just that its rate of increase its hoped will be slowed.)

The Conservative led Coalition Government want to eliminate the structural deficit (that’s the difference between how much our government spends and collects in taxes) one year earlier than they needed too. This is the key Conservative led Coalition Government economic policy, front loading the greatest burden of the cuts and tax increases on the early years. The important element, a growing private sector, to replace the jobs lost.

In other words another gamble, Labour’s gamble was that increased public spending would be matched by more taxes from a growing economy. This seemed to be working, until is that is the banking sector collapsed, and we realised the mistake Gordon Brown had made, over-reliance on the business and service sectors.

The Conservatives gamble that the jobs lost in the public sector would be replaced by jobs in the private sector, and a growing economy. And that is the unanswered question by both parties, where does this future growth come from?

As to my question ‘Who will be the next Conservative Leader?’ other than David Cameron, who else is there? – and that may be the Conservatives party 'big problem', a strong leader without a serious contender to act as a counter measure and bring balance to the party.

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