Capitalism works

In the future, the great divide between Conservatives won’t be over Brexit but capitalism: are the Tories a party of the free market or the nanny state? We have nailed our colours to the mast with our Campaign for

Capitalism, and it was encouraging to see so many prominent voices on that side of the debate at last week’s Tory party conference: the likes of Sajid Javid, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, David Gauke, Dominic Raab and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

The public needs to hear more from them and from the younger generation of MPs who believe that bottom-up voluntary action is both more efficient and ethical than top-down statism. The Conservatives need a whole new language. Younger voters have no memories of the Winter of Discontent or the Thatcherite revolution – the danger posed by Jeremy Corbyn’s Seventiesstyle Labour Party is not self-evident to this group, and they also do not respond well to dry philosophical abstractions. As Daniel Hannan warns overleaf, socialism, though illogical, can be instinctively appealing. Labour has cleverly seized upon the “take back control” theme of the Brexit referendum to give the impression that a vote for Mr Corbyn will lead to re-industrialisation and rising wages, which is risible nonsense.

The Conservatives, ironically, need to take back the “take back control” agenda and make both an intellectual and emotional case for freedom. Give people back control over their own money by cutting taxes. Give people control over their services through reforms that free them from the tyranny of bad consumer experiences. Give people control of their lives by unleashing economic opportunities. Time is running out.