May: the young must know capitalism works
PM warns of socialism’s dangers and admits party was ill-prepared for the snap election
THE Conservatives need to teach a generation of young people about the importance of free markets and the “sound management” of the economy in the wake of the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, Theresa May has said.
The Prime Minister said that the Conservatives have wrongly assumed that the arguments about the risks of socialism “were done and dusted”, and in an interview in The House magazine with Lord Howard, the former Tory leader, Mrs May also admitted that the party had lost the snap election – which she called – because it wasn’t ready.
She said: “As somebody who was heavily involved in the pre-1997 Conservative government, so much work was done to get that message across, of the importance of free markets, of sound management of the economy, of global trade. And sadly we do see that that message has been lost.
“I think in a sense we thought those arguments were done and dusted. That everybody understood it. That we didn’t have to go back to them.
“I think now we see we do have to go back to them. We’ve got to make that case all over again, because there is a generation who have grown up in a different environment and perhaps haven’t seen the problems that can occur when you don’t believe in free markets and sound management of the economy.
“I think there is a generation out there who feel that they’re going to be worse off than their parents. And what we want as Conservatives is that people should be able to see a brighter future for their children.”
In a speech at the Bank of England yesterday Mrs May warned against Mr Corbyn’s “ideologically extreme” policies, comparing them to the approach of the Venezuelan Government.
She said: “It would lead to a wider loss of faith in free markets, and risk a return to the failed ideologies of the past. A return to protectionism in international trade, and to inflationary policies at home. Far from somehow protecting the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, that outcome would surely hurt them the most.”
Mrs May also conceded that her decision to call a snap election had been a “significant factor” in the result.
She said: “I think it was, because by definition in a snap election you’ve not been able to prepare people for it. So out there people have to work quite quickly to put their local campaigns together, and you do get slightly more of a central approach.
“We need to look at that very carefully, and to make sure we get the connection between what people want to do locally and the central campaign.”
During a visit to Estonia today, the Prime Minister will insist that Britain is unconditionally committed to the defence and security of Europe after Brexit.
She will say it is in the interests of every country in the bloc to confront the growing terror threat, illegal migration and increased Russian aggression together.
‘I think there is a generation out there who feel that they’re going to be worse off than their parents’
Theresa May gave a strong defence of the free market yesterday, extolling its capacity to enrich and liberate the individual. This is exactly the case for capitalism that the country has been waiting to hear from the Tories. Memories of the grim Seventies are fading; Jeremy Corbyn is selling a vision of socialism to a younger generation that has no experience of how dreadful it was in practice. The time has come for Conservatives to fight back.
No one can deny the political challenge. The financial crisis undermined many voters’ faith in capitalism; arguing for austerity, which is necessary to restore the public finances to order, was an uphill task. It would be easy for politicians to say that the time has come to spend money or nationalise public services – and Labour under Mr Corbyn has embraced exactly that mantra. But Mrs May’s audience was the Bank of England, celebrating its 20th anniversary of independence, a far more sober institution with a history that illustrates the benefits of prudence. Governments used to manipulate interest rates to win votes. The result: peaks and troughs of inflation and unemployment that reduced Britain to a pauper. When Labour gave the Bank independence in 1997, it replaced chaos with professional judgment. The consequence has been two decades of relative stability – undermined only when Labour broke with its experiment in good management and turned on the money tap.
The intellectual case for capitalism is easy to make. What of the moral one? When Margaret Thatcher explained her philosophy of liberty in the Eighties, she tended to use blunt language and to speak with deep confidence in the free market. Mrs May is not Mrs Thatcher; it would be foolish to try to compel her to be. Her vision is of a free market combined with sensible regulation. If this argument is pushed too far, it may well undermine itself: when Tories use the language of the Left, it is only the Left that usually ends up validated. Nevertheless, it is heartening – refreshing, in fact – to hear a Conservative leader explain how capitalism makes for citizens who are freer, richer, healthier and who enjoy more open governments. Mr Corbyn has made his pitch for Big Brother. In her conference speech next week, Mrs May must build on what she told the Bank, and detail, with concrete policies, how the Tories will unleash the creative potential of capitalism.