We MUST ditch the dark Dickensian language of austerity

ACCORDING to the conventional wisdom that ‘it’s the economy, stupid’, the Conservatives should be miles ahead in this Election. Inflation is down to zero and interest and mortgage rates remain at historically low levels. The Government has presided over the creation of 1.85million jobs, with unemployment tumbling across the country.

The British economy is growing at the fastest rate in the developed world and is the envy of the paralysed eurozone. Living standards are rising and millions on low pay have been taken out of income tax altogether.

Consumer confidence is rising, and even former Labour supporting businesses have publicly given support to the Conservatives.

Against this terrific backdrop we should be ten points ahead of a Labour Party with zero economic credibility and a leader who was Gordon Brown’s special adviser in the Treasury for more than a decade and a member of his catastrophic Government. The questions many Conservatives are asking are: what is going on and what are we going to do about it?

Any successful proposition requires to set out the ‘what’, the ‘how’ and the ‘why’.

On the economy, the ‘what’ is easy: most post-war Prime Ministers would have given anything to have the record that Cameron is able to put before the British people at this Election.

On the ‘how’, while we have made clear the need to reduce the deficit and rein back on public spending, we cannot assume we have won the economic debate, since too many voters are still bought into the myths of the New Labour parallel economic universe.

For too many people, the concept of government borrowing seems a painless one. We need to remind them that, just as there is no such thing as government money, only taxpayers’ money, so there is no such thing as government debt, only taxpayers’ debt.

There are too many people who believe that it is acceptable to spend money today that we do not have and pass the bill on to the next generation.

Yet even those who believe in this basically immoral proposition need to understand that this year, every taxpayer in Britain is paying around £1,900 extra tax for the interest that the Government has to repay on its debt.

That is £1,900 that they could have spent on something they need for themselves or their families, or money that they could have used to pay off their own debts or put aside for a rainy day. At government level, we are paying around £58 billion in debt interest this year, much more than the defence budget and around half of our total spending on the NHS.

That brings me to the language we use. In 2009, when George Osborne talked of the need for an ‘age of austerity’, he was right to say Britain had to make tough decisions to fix the economy.

But the term ‘austerity’ has developed negative connotations with too many voters with its dark Dickensian ring. We need to talk in terms that resonate with voters who share our own natural instincts. We should talk about Britain having to live within its means. After all, what responsible family up and down the country doesn’t understand the concept of having to balance the family’s budget every month? They understand they can’t spend money they don’t have without dangerous consequences. We need to make the emotional contact that governments have to obey the same rules and that spending money we don’t have today will mean restricted opportunities for future generations.

That will help frame the debate in line with traditional Conservative values rather than allowing Labour to get away with distorting our message and avoiding the consequences of their own economic illiteracy.

This brings me to the ‘why’. At our strongest, the Conservative Party has championed a broad range of ideas aimed at liberating our people from the excesses of state interference at home and defending our freedoms from threats abroad. We are at our strongest when we are a broad church and have avoided external coalitions in the past by maintaining a vibrant internal one.

We have been the standard bearers for freedom, including economic freedom, that has allowed individuals to maximise their own distinctive potential, and in doing so maximise their

We should be ten points ahead in the Election polls

contribution to their own society, their nation and the wider world. Political, economic and religious freedom engenders creativity and innovation, and the free competition of one talent with another is the route to progress and excellence.

To be successful, this ‘Liberation Conservatism’, as I call it, has to be blind to colour, social background and religion. It should not matter what your parents did, where you went to school or what regional accent you have. All that should matter is that you share the same values, aspirations and goals for the sort of Britain that we want to see – strong, proud and free.

This is the ‘why’ banner under which our economic success needs to ride. It is a banner that all Conservatives should be comfortable to hold aloft.

The Left measure their success by the relative gaps between individuals and groups in society. Not for them the challenge and rigour of absolute achievements. They have failed to understand – and continue to – that if you hold back the brightest pupils, it doesn’t make the less bright more clever; if you hold back the risk takers, it doesn’t make the rest more secure; if you make the wealthy poorer, it doesn’t make the poor wealthier. It is clear from today’s Labour Party that they have learned none of this.

Conservatives believe that talent should be free to flourish – that exceptionalism, innovation and excellence need trailblazers. We also believe these trailblazers should not be held back by punitive taxation, and that people who work hard, who have ambition, who are driven to succeed, should be free to spend their money however they please.

We need to shout these great Conservative values from the rooftops. We cannot afford to be shy about what drives us, what makes us different as Conservatives from the valueless mush of our opponents. If we do not make it clear we believe fervently in our values, how can we expect others to do so?

This Election is not just about keeping Ed Miliband out of No 10. It is about the offer being made to the electorate for the future. We have successfully turned around the economy that was so badly damaged by Labour. It is an approach they cannot match because their beliefs and instincts are wrong. We need to show the British people that we are ambitious for them and our country.

If we want to win this Election and win it well, as we deserve, there needs to be a moral dimension, a revivalist spirit and a passion for libertarian conservatism. As we publish our Election manifesto on Tuesday, voters will want to see the values behind our policies and the country we want to create as the fruit of our successes.

We have the competence, we have the experience – now we must add the mission.

We need to shout our values from the rooftops