Ten steps May can take to shape a better future
Under David Cameron the Conservative Party treated its members like an occasionally tiresome domestic pet. Because of this, hundreds of thousands of them left. The 150,000 who stayed had looked forward to voting for a new leader, a treat denied them after Andrea Leadsom’s evaporation last Monday.
I don’t doubt that Tories will unite behind Mrs May and, with Labour heading for the hospice, she will lead them to victory in 2020. However, the degree of enthusiasm and success with which she does this depends on her ability to connect with her party’s natural supporters. They have been marginalised and disregarded for too long: and Labour’s fate should serve as a warning to her about what can go wrong if such contempt continues.
If she wants to secure her position, and transform Britain for the better in the process, it is not – especially in the absence of an effective opposition – too difficult to do. Brexit is the obvious priority, and David Davis is a good choice to mastermind that. But there are other policies she should pursue: and, being a helpful sort, I outline 10 of them here.
First, our security is fundamental to our nation and the preservation of our way of life. Our Armed Forces are brave, loyal, dedicated and dangerously underfunded. They are too small to protect us against potential enemies or to allow us to participate properly in Nato. We are intensely vulnerable, especially to the malevolent Vladimir Putin but also, as the Nice outrage has just shown, to Islamic extremism.
Mrs May has to order the expansion of all three services. If she must persist with the grandstanding and wasteful overseas aid budget (and she should not), a substantial proportion should be directed to extra troops deployed as peacekeepers in eastern Europe.
Second, the plan for a high-speed railway from London to Birmingham and further north, carving up numerous Tory constituencies, must be scrapped. Some of the billions earmarked for it should be used to improve existing railways, re-open closed ones and provide better infrastructure in depressed areas. The original idea, based on the entirely false premise that people don’t work on trains, has been discredited: it makes no sense to carry on.
Third, the over-subscription of grammar schools makes a powerful case to open new ones. They improve social mobility and opportunity for the less advantaged, helping them to reach the best universities. The reincorporation of higher education in the Department of Education is long overdue, and will facilitate this strategy. By opening such a school in every town, everywhere would be a catchment area. There should be the opportunity for bright pupils in nonselective schools to join at the ages of 14 and 16, and for non-selective schools to specialise in and improve technical and vocational teaching for the less academic.
Fourth, to encourage enterprise and reduce unemployment still further, corporation tax should fall, the top rate of tax should be cut to 40p and the thresholds at which both the basic and higher rates of income tax are paid should be raised. The new Chancellor should also find a new Governor for the Bank of England, as the present incumbent, in his determination to be proved right about the dangers of Brexit, keeps talking the country down. Lower rates of VAT and corporation tax should be introduced for businesses in depressed areas – which should become enterprise zones – to encourage start-ups.
Fifth, the Government should tax undeveloped brownfield sites and other derelict land to encourage the building of new housing while protecting the green belt.
Sixth, although many tax cuts would be self-funding through the stimulation of economic activity and growth, they should also be funded by further cuts to the size of the state. This should start with a rationalisation of central and local government and a cut in their payrolls. Sajid Javed, the new Communities Secretary, has the experience to impose the disciplines of the private sector on the public, and a similar programme is needed in Whitehall.
Seventh, welfare reform must continue, supplemented by the improved education provision and enterprise strategy to ensure more jobs are created to help people out of poverty. A workfare programme should be introduced to ensure that no one capable of work is idle, and does not draw the dole long-term. The idea of welfare as a safety net for those incapable of work or in serious need for reasons of health or age is the target the Government must pursue.
Eighth, Amber Rudd, the new Home Secretary, must improve waning confidence in the police. The election of police commissioners has done nothing to help this and they should be scrapped. Chief constables must be reminded that their first priority is to protect the public against serious crime and to catch the criminals who commit it, and not to engage in political stunts.
Ninth, Miss Rudd must control nonEU immigration. This entails a proper border control force and undertaking systematic deportations of those here illegally.
Tenth, we must train more doctors; we urgently need a strategic plan for care of the elderly; we must review what the NHS provides free at point of use, to eliminate many cosmetic and non-essential treatments; and in an increasingly affluent society, we must allow tax relief on private healthcare, to encourage people to stop using an NHS that has exhausted its capacity.
Sentimentalists have said David Cameron ran a good government. He didn’t. It was a clique of grandstanding nonentities who mostly relied on rhetoric rather than action and whose few achievements were largely accidental – such as taking Britain out of the EU. Mrs May has made a determinedly fresh start with personalities. Now she must do the same with policies.