PM: WE’RE THE PARTY FOR GRAFTERS
Cameron hits out at Labour sneerers as he comes out fighting
DAVID Cameron will put small business at the heart of the election campaign today by declaring that the Conservatives are ‘the party of the grafters’.
The Prime Minister, who has faced criticism over a campaign lacking in passion, said he made ‘no apology’ for focusing on the economy, insisting: ‘Nothing matters more.’
He will appeal to small firms and the selfemployed, saying while Labour sneers at those who work hard, his party backs them.
Yesterday, Mr Cameron defended his campaign against criticism it is too narrow.
‘If you want political excitement, maybe you could go to Greece,’ he said. ‘That’s an exciting country, I am told. I don’t think that’s exciting – I think that’s terrifying.
‘When you get a new job, a new home, get a new childcare place or start a new business... now that’s truly exciting. If you want to take a risk, vote for the other man. My God, he’s got plenty of risks.’
He said Labour’s ‘disastrous’ plans for higher taxes and borrowing would risk the stability of people’s lives and urged voters to tell Ed Miliband to ‘stick them where the sun don’t shine’.
‘Some people are saying to me, “You are putting too much emphasis on a strong and stable economy and securing our future”,’ he said. ‘I plead guilty.’ The Tories will today unveil a separate manifesto for small businesses, calling them ‘ the lifeblood of the economy’. Thousands of small business leaders will back the party in an open letter.
And Mr Cameron – who is understood to have ordered that all campaigning activity is now dedicated to the economy – will set out new proposals to support millions of small businesses and self-employed.
He is to promise tax breaks and start-up loans, and an end to another £10billionworth of red tape, to enable the creation of 600,000 businesses a year. The Tories are also promising to review the disadvantages faced by the self-employed, who make up 15 per cent of the workforce.
In an echo of the campaign rhetoric of Margaret Thatcher, who famously celebrated Napoleon’s supposed dismissal of Britain as a ‘ nation of shopkeepers’, Mr Cameron will say: ‘Labour think it’s government that creates jobs. We know it’s the people who take risks, start out on their own, wake up at the crack of dawn to open up their shop and do their books on the kitchen table at midnight who create jobs.
‘Small businesses are the backbone of our economy – and Conservatives are behind them 100 per cent. We’re the party of the grafters and the roofers and the retailers and the plumbers.
‘We get them, we respect them, we understand them, we back them. Where Labour sneer, we cheer.’
Last night, taking the Tory campaign to the Liberal Democrat heartland of Yeovil, Mr Cameron rejected charges that it has been too relentlessly focused on the economy and warnings about Mr Miliband’s credentials.
He insisted that at the heart of Conservative ideology was helping people ‘make the most of the talents that God has given you’.
Meeting business people who are making a success of their lives, benefit claimants who have found jobs and first-time buyers helped to take a step on to the housing ladder ‘makes my heart beat faster’, the Prime Minister said. ‘What excites me is the idea of being able to say to another person ‘you’ve got a job’, being able to say ‘you’re coming off welfare’. What excites me is seeing young people get the keys to that first flat. That’s the excitement we need – it’s about continuing with a plan that works.
‘I went into politics not because I wanted to implement some arid ideology, to play party games at Westminster. I went into politics because I believe in trying to make a difference, trying to help people change their lives. The economy isn’t just lines on a graph or numbers in a book. The economy is every job our people have, the money you take home at the end of the month, cutting people’s taxes to help them in their lives.
‘You’ve got nothing without a strong economy. You can’t have a strong NHS or good schools. This matters more than anything.’
In an interview for the Murnaghan programme on Sky News earlier yesterday, Mr Cameron dismissed the idea the Tory campaign was too negative. He said: ‘ People talk about this campaign – there’s nothing more positive than saying to people: let’s get another two million jobs, let’s fund another three million apprenticeships, let’s let you keep more of your own money to spend as you choose, let’s build those homes that you want to live in, let’s make sure there’s good schools for your children.
‘That is the most positive vision there could possibly be.’
‘Lifeblood of our economy’
have been the contest of a future election: Boris v Ed.
Mr Miliband, convulsed by the presence of Bojo, did everything he could to stop Mr Johnson talking. He tried to skewer him on the non-dom tax policy. Boris, snuffling like a fat labrador, said there was dubious merit in a tax which would not bring in any money. And then – ping – a light lit over Boris’s bean and he remembered that Mil’ had been i n the Treasury for yonks and had never done anything about non- doms. ‘Are you the same creature?’ he asked. ‘Is there some sort of doppelganger?’
Mil’ adopted a superior, smoothie manner, pulling atrocious faces. They were talking over one another. Marr (no friend of Cameron, remember): ‘I have a premonition this is things to come.’
I am sure of no such thing but it was interesting to see Miliband made to look so terribly Establishment and old school. And Boris had the last word. Asked if he would have used that metaphor about Ed stabbing his brother David in the back, he replied: ‘I’m not saying his brother had to present himself to A&E with a dagger in his back, but he is more danger to this country than his brother would have been.’