Say goodbye to nanny and return to real Tory values
IF I HAD to sum up in one word the reason I am a Conservative, the answer would be simple: Freedom. That should always be the first principle any Conservative Government should base its policies on. Whether that is the freedom to live your life as you choose without the dead hand of the state seeking to interfere; the freedom to keep more of the money you earn to spend as you please and to be protected from excessive taxation; or the freedom to walk the streets safely without the fear of being a victim of crime; this is what it means for me to be a Conservative.
And it also goes with the grain of public opinion in this country.
However, this Conservative government appears to have lost its way in delivering on this timeless Conservative value of freedom.
Obviously the past 18 months have seen the biggest erosion of our freedoms in living memory, with arbitrary controls over our lives being made which had, contrary to what was claimed, often little or no scientific basis behind them at all.
Large parts of the establishment seemed to get drunk on that excessive power and control, and are still reluctant to give up the emergency powers they handed to themselves.
Indeed Sir Richard Dearlove (former head of MI6) said at an event I recently attended at the Royal Over-seas League that the restrictions on our freedoms we had seen in this country over the past 18 months were more excessive than any he had ever experienced living behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War, which should put a chill down everyone’s spine.
However, I am afraid this assault on our freedoms has not just been limited to the response to Covid.
We are now presiding over the highest burden of taxation since the Second World War – something any Conservative government should be embarrassed about – and there is every sign it is only going to get worse.
We have also seen the truly horrific case of Sarah Everard – leaving many women frightened to walk the streets, something we must urgently address.
An important part of freedom for everyone is to feel safe both in our homes and outside.
The fact that it was a police officer, someone we want to trust, who was responsible for such a terrible crime has made the impact all the worse.
Many people with a teenage child, especially in London, will tell you that they are afraid of them going outside too because of the threat of knife crime.
It has added to questions about whether enough is being done about law and order, even after the new tougher sentences recently enacted by this government.
We do not want to see our police officers having cups of tea with environmental extremists blocking up the M25.
But while the state is not active enough on tackling crime and disruptive protestlike ers, it seems that it is only too happy to interfere in our individual lives.
Unbelievably, a Conservative government is currently legislating to ban shops from offering special offers on products they consider to be unhealthy, unnecessarily further pushing up the cost of living for many hard-pressed families.
This is going to cover around 40 per cent of products on our supermarket shelves and will mean the end of buy one get one free offers that many of us look out for – all in the name of tackling obesity.
The policy includes limiting purchases and increasing the price on food and drink bacon, ham, cheese, yogurt drinks and breakfast cereals.all popular family items. This hits the worst off most and is not “levelling up”.
Indeed our freedoms have become so insignificant that this restriction – by the Government’s own estimate – will reduce a person’s calorie intake by less than two calories a day (the equivalent of a Tic-tac).
It also ignores the fact that no individual product is unhealthy, it is a diet which is either healthy or unhealthy, and yet will add £200 to the food bill of an average family.
How any Conservative can support such a nanny-state socialist measure is bewildering to me – whatever happened to individual freedom, individual responsibility?
So at this week’s Party conference the Blue Collar Conservative Group is holding a fringe meeting entitled “Say No To The Nanny State”.
It would appear that this message is needed now more than ever.
The tickets were sold out in record time which fills me with hope that after 18 months of a statist approach there are many Conservative members also keen to see a scaling back of government control over our lives.
Let’s hope we can use this conference to get the government back on to a Conservative track.
We need once again to show the public that they don’t have to choose between Labour and Labour lite.
We need to show the public that the Conservative government they elected resoundingly in 2019 will govern as proud Conservatives – and will first and foremost be guided again by a belief in freedom.
CRUSADE PROTECT OUR
FREEDOMS