Mercifully, there remain a few Thatcherites, even in the Cabinet, who believe in the power of liberty, responsibility, commerce and voluntary action.
Nearly everything believed to exercise Labour more than the Tories was also named more often as a priority for “me and my family” than for Britain as a whole.
Between 1997 and 2005, public sector spending rose from £336 billion to £517 billion a year. But its output has increased little, so its productivity has fallen dramatically.
By 2022, Corbyn will no longer look ‘new’, and that he came close to winning in 2017 should mean that he will then be exposed to far greater scrutiny,
As possibly the only Brexiteer in the Parliamentary Party’s One Nation group, I am also only too aware that this message must be accompanied by a successful EU negotiation.
The Chancellor has not always been well treated by his neighbour, and deserves support over public spending. But he has mishandled his internal position over Brexit.
The left cries “Growth not austerity”. Seriously, comrades, if it were that easy, don’t you think someone would have done it by now?
We should put the proceeds in a special Redistribution Fund to spend either on public services, or on poorer communities, or cutting taxes for the lower paid.
The Corbynite-Momentum-Left movement is trying to bluff Tory MPs and activists into believing that public support for its hysterical worldview is higher than it really is.
The “modernisers” think that people with clear principles are cranks. In five years, they may find themselves queuing for food at their local Red Star state supermarket.
“Austerity is not a choice. Austerity is what happens when you have a deficit. And we still have one of £50 billion.”
Labour’s handouts must be exposed as a self-defeating deception – as must the danger of what happens when “there is no money left”.
The basic principles of limited government, economic and civil liberties, freedom and equality under the law are almost entirely absent from her programme.
The Prime Minister’s manifesto will have its flaws, but she has grasped the implications of Brexit more surely than any other senior politician.
To reduce investment in infrastructure or R&D is to take away from the future – just as surely as running up unsustainable debt does.