Brown's aspirations aren't those of Thatcher

By Janet Daly

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We're all well and truly into aspiration now. The Chancellor has been uttering the word every five seconds as part of the repackaged New Gordon campaign, and now David Cameron is to make it a key concept in the Conservatives' next phase of development. In a speech today, he will emphasise the importance of "individual aspiration" to his vision of a future society. The fact that he is stating this explicitly is a testimony to Gordon Brown's political manoeuvring and to the preciousness of the concept of aspiration, which is now clearly being acknowledged as the top prize in the electoral game. Of course, there is nothing new about the notion of individual aspiration as a seminal force in domestic politics. advertisement It was the single most significant theme of Thatcherism, signifying as it did a whole encyclopedia of politically radical thoughts: a break with the post-war consensus that had regarded collectivism as the great social virtue, and what turned out to be electoral dynamite - an invitation to working-class people to emerge from the passivity that Labour had traditionally encouraged. So breathtakingly successful was the Tory message ("You should not be ashamed of your desire to improve yourself and the future of your own family") that Labour had to re-invent itself to survive. But the Brown people must have feared that all that stuff about Mondeo man and a recognition that "our people" do not necessarily want to see themselves as perpetual basket cases would be seen as old-fashioned Blairism. So before the Tories could jump in and reclaim their legacy, Mr Brown stamped the word "aspiration" firmly on to his forehead and made it clear that he was not about to relinquish his party's claim to the most stupendously popular message in modern political discourse. So everybody is using the "A" word, but what exactly does anybody mean by it? Mr Brown's real intentions are, as usual, impenetrable. Surely, for any government to encourage individual aspiration would have to involve making it easier for people to start and expand businesses, to climb the property ladder, to be rewarded for saving, and to leave their children what was left after a lifetime of hard work. But all of Mr Brown's history at the Treasury suggests that he is inclined to do the opposite of these things. His mania for regulation penalises and undermines the efforts of those who create wealth, and his voracious appetite for revenue means that self-improvement through earnings - particularly for those on middle incomes - is likely to be frustratingly difficult, if not impossible. It is important to remember that he has chosen to punish people at precisely those points in their lives where aspiration comes most into play: stamp duty on property hits the young couple who need a larger house to accommodate a growing family or to move to a better neighbourhood, as well as the older couple who wish to free up capital to help their children. The skewing of tax and benefits against the two-parent family hurts the conscientious, self-respecting married couple trying to avoid welfare dependency. And most perniciously, Mr Brown has chosen to undermine the efforts of savers and those who relied on personal pension schemes: if saving and forward planning are not to be rewarded, what sense can be made of the notion of aspiration, which must, in the end, involve self-determination and independence? With all this baggage, how credible can Mr Brown be in this race to be king of aspirational Britain? But maybe the word itself is undergoing one of those metamorphoses to which we have had to become accustomed in the surreal world of modern politics. What everybody seems to have in mind, Conservatives included, is a new hybrid: not the basic, common-or-garden sort of aspiration for yourself and your own that Thatcherism preached, but a rather more benign variety that can never be confused with the dreaded "selfish individualism". Mr Brown seems to believe he can talk this language without needing to alter his desire to redistribute wealth or to control in the minutest detail how every economic transaction is made: that he can somehow reconcile what individuals want and hope for in life with the greater good, as he sees it, of the whole society. If people can just be made to see that their goals and the rest of the population's are identical, there will be no contradiction between private ambition and national wellbeing. What he wants is nothing less than a spiritual transformation of the relationship between the private person and society - what socialists have always wanted and never achieved. The Tories, too, seem to be edging in this direction, although as yet their programme is not sufficiently detailed for us to be sure. When Mr Cameron talks of "individual aspiration" set in the context of "collective security", he might simply be describing what every sensible Conservative would always have advocated. No one in his right mind would want to live in a society in which individual egomania was encouraged to trample over communal ties and a wider sense of social responsibility. If collective security means enforcing the rule of law and social orderliness, who could object? No one can realise his ambitions or be successfully self-reliant without a public system of shared values. Private life is never utterly private. So far, so unexceptionable. But what does this mean for the mechanisms of everyday existence? The real question is, who will draw the line between the public good and private desire? Who decides what the limits are on personal fulfilment vs the common purpose? Is it central government, local institutions or the community? This may be the key to the differences between Labour and the Conservatives, and to which one of them can genuinely claim to be the aspirational party. It is possible to see, even in its mysteriously unrevealed state, that the Conservative programme has the beginnings of a plausible case. Mr Cameron's talk of localism and an enabling state could lend itself perfectly well to a settlement between the individual and government that would really and truly make individual aspiration compatible with the greater good. This is something of a leap in the dark, but on the basis of their past histories, we must assume for the moment that it is the Tories who are most likely to understand what is involved in freeing people to live their own lives and fulfil their ambitions.

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To Iain Kennedy,
Surely it was the Conservative's who rescued and eventually ballanced the economy after Labour's near-destructiof it. What about the time when Labour government meant that you couldn't even bury the dead? This country only eventually woke up to Labour's incompentence through a period of tough but ultimately essential reforms - put into effect by the Conservatives.

This article is a fair article however I do feel that Brown still gets credit for things that he hasn;t really achieved himself...
Posted by Tim Caines on June 19, 2007 12:35 AM
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To Adrian,
No,it is not April fool.It is just desserts.I grew up in the seventies when under the Tories we had petrol rationing and a 3 day week.I grew into adulthood in the eighties when under the Tories VAT doubled,there were 5 million unemployed and riots on the streets.I settled down in the early nineties when under the Tories my mortgage interest was 16.9%pa and there were poll tax riots and cardboard hovels for homeless people in the middle of London. I only started to make financial headway in the late nineties with low interest rates and stable prices and like 90% of UK I have never had it so good. I bet the same applies everyone writing in this blog.At least I am honest. You are simply spouting time-worn cliches.Do you not remember the tax cuts in the late 80s that triggered the housing boom and the subsequent crash, or are you in denial? Want to see my old mortgage statements?High tax countries like Denmark and Sweden have much more successful economies than ours and have done so for 50 years.We are only now enjoying the standard of living they had 20 years ago.They grow faster and they look after each other better.And the electorate agree with me ,not with you Adrian!Why do you think they keep voting Labour in again and again? It is because their aspirations now have a hope in Hell of getting somewhere .
Posted by Iain Kennedy on June 18, 2007 7:29 PM
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If Gordon Brown has any sense he'll stop Blair in his tracks right now over Europe.

It's so obvious that Blair wants to be the next President of Europe.

Gordon's a fool if he thinks he can trust Blair.
Posted by martin on June 18, 2007 4:06 PM
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Brown wanted equality of opportunity; then it became 'for the many, not the few'. Next it'll be equality of aspiration: he cannot see a populace without trying to level it down. What he really wants to achieve (which is of course, impossible) is equality of outcome. And this is where Cameron is failing to pick up the baton and run with it: given that the country will - can only - thrive on aspiration and the success of aspiring individuals, he really ought to take it to its logical conclusion and make sure that academic aspiration as well as all the others - sport, entertainment, entrepreneurial, vocational, etc - is as well catered for as any other.

The trick is to make the people free and able to take opportunity where it exists, and also, that when one person's outcome from opportunity delivers an advantage, that we don't then beat it down as being unfair to those who failed to take the same opportunity or make of it the same successful outcome. We all start equal; some will need more guidance than others to see the way ahead but eventually, there is no equality of outcome. The very fact that people like Brown and Cameron exist is proof of this. So, give us rein to pursue our aspirations, set us free to chase our dreams and reap the benefits as a society when it works: capping it, restricting it, levelling down will only ensure failed outcomes and less for society to draw benefit from.
Posted by Philip Franklin on June 18, 2007 2:03 PM
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Warning: Extremely Obvious Point Approaching.
I'm in my twenties, a child of the 80s and a loyal Thatcherite. I'd say from my relatively short lifetime's interaction with other people that about a third of the population agrees with me; that another third, including many of my friends from university, are on the hard left; and that the remaining third are a kind of woolly left-of-right-of-left-of-right of centre (who, incidentally, fail to see that there is no such thing as the political centre, because to be centrist means enacting contradictory policies at the same time - cf. Mr Blair: most militaristic foreign policy since Eden, while slashing & burning the defence establishment to show our more cuddly fiscal priorities; tax unhealthy things like alcohol, tobacco and gambling to show our healthy-living goals, while encouraging longer pub hours, decriminalising psychotropic drugs and opening supercasinos to create a more 'modern' country etc yawn etc).
Now, the Tories take my third for granted and campaign to win over the morons in the 'centrist' third; Labour takes the hard left for granted and campaigns to win over these same morons in this same 'centrist' third. The upshot is that two thirds of the British people are now almost totally unrepresented in Parliament except by a few old 'characters' (an appellation which means political death) who languish on the backbenches and occasionally resign from committees in protest at something or other, and British political discourse is now under the total and tyrannical control of (naturally) a minority of centrist morons.
The trick, then, is not for the two parties to try to win their support bases over to centrism but to try to win the centrist morons over to the left and right. It's what we call 'political debate', an old-fashioned concept associated with something called 'democracy'… Hands up who knows of anyone in British politics who would and could do such a thing? Any hands? No?
Posted by Ted on June 18, 2007 1:25 PM
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"Individual aspiration" is very vague. It could mean almost anything. It would be better if people said what (I hope) they mean - namely that we will revert to being a (more) free market economy, unregulated for the most part except by the market itself.

The social engineering bits, which are important, should be designed to promote family life with two parents (even, wait for it, two same sex, cohabiting parents). They could start with re-introducing a tax break for families with children, like the married man's allowance, as was. Then scrap inheritance tax, over a period if needs be. Remove stamp duty at the lower end of the market. Regenerate inner cities by making certain areas genuine tax concession zones for businesses who employ people living very locally.

And so on. Aspiration will emerge of its own accord if the politicians make the circumstances right.
Posted by Nigel Broadbent on June 18, 2007 1:24 PM
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Iain Kennedy on June 18, 2007 10:54 AM

LOL good joke .. did you grow up in the old soviet union ??? or perhaps think its April 1st ?

less tax destabilises the economy .. that's a new one. you must have studied alongside Gordon Brown and his economic history. No one will notice if you pass or fail .. and clearly no lessons learnt from the past.

Getting to the heart of the matter and put simply :

Lower taxes have been shown repeatedly to encourage growth. More taxation stifles growth. Look at the old communist countries where there is a rush out of high taxation countries to the lower taxation / economic libralisation countries.
Vibrant ecomonies around the globe.. less legislation / regulation.
Stangant ecomonies occur as a result of regulatory strangulation (unless of course the results are fixed through fiddled statistics and massive debt (UK for example)).

Enough said.


Posted by adrian on June 18, 2007 1:15 PM
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Localism has resulted in the growth of council employees in peeked caps with a ticket pad waiting in hiding for you to err.
Posted by Paul on June 18, 2007 12:59 PM
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I aspire to being able to live my life and spend my hard-earned money how I decide, free from Government interference. Sadly, the only way I'll be able to do that, I think, is if I flee! Over the last decade Britain has come to resemble Nazi Germany more by the minute - erosion of liberties, banning hunting, religious laws, detention without trial, banning demonstrations, thought police ... help!
Posted by Andy on June 18, 2007 12:41 PM
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Dont read too much support into a bunch of old soldiers surrounding the Boadecia of their day for a photo op.
That scenario and a few beers is what makes the British Legion great.

New conservatism sounds to me like a Tory version of the new Labour policy.
New Labour devised a palatable sensible program for government. It was a riproaring success.
The Labour lite solution got rid of the excesses of the looney left.
The Conservative lite, a sort of Thatcherless Toryism is a sensible alternative to the present government, should the electorate tire of new Labour.Tory lite gets rid of the scary bits of true blue for which life is too short, especially for the middle and lower income brigade.
Now all we need is the Lib Dems to get their policy smack in the progressive centre to become the smaller pivotal partner to alternating centre right and centre left governments.
We should not forget that the Tories fully supported Iraq. Tony Blair has gracefully borne the brunt of of a fully supported policy of necessary evil and difficulty that would have befallen a David Cameron or a William Hague in office.
Tony Blair Has left a powerful legacy, including the resolution of the long intractible
' Irish problem ' and more importantly, has achieved the long awaited reconciliation of the people of these Islands. In that alone he surpasses even the superb efforts of the eminent Mr. Gladstone.
I hope that Mr. Brown, and Mr. Cameron when his time comes as it surely will , can do half as much for all our people.
A thought provoking article Janet.

Posted by Jo Geoghegan on June 18, 2007 12:41 PM
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If David Cameron cannot even listen to his own party, on issues such as Grammar Schools, what hope have the rest of us got?

In addition, David's habit of describing Right Wing members of his party as out of touch Dinosaurs does not inspire confidence in his credentials as an advocate of individual aspiration.
Posted by Eric Worrall on June 18, 2007 12:23 PM
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If Cameron's 'message' on individual aspiration is as muddled as his policy on museums charging admission fees ('yes' and 'no'), then it'll be a disaster. So what else is new from this gaffe-prone mediocrity?
Posted by John Austin on June 18, 2007 11:53 AM
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What is aspiration to politicians is usually exaspiration to the rest of us, who have to finance their dreams and policies.
Anything Brown comes up with will certainly benefit only him and his, as his grasping hand finally gets on to the control button. Ten tears of numbing frustation will manifest itself in disaster and a final nail in the nations coffin.
Posted by Freddie Catt on June 18, 2007 11:51 AM
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A country is only governable if the moral fabric of society is based on honesty, integrity and respect for others.
I am increasingly convinced that these qualities are viewed in this country as lifestyle choices rather than moral imperatives.
Therefore, until we return to 'old-fashioned' standards in this respect (via education,the media, more responsible parenting etc) holding high government office will always be a poisoned chalice as there is no concensus as to what is truly right or wrong.
Posted by ron manager on June 18, 2007 11:45 AM
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Has democracy come to this? Trying to decode the weasel words of duplicitous politicians and guessing what they mean and therefore stand for?

Or was it ever thus? Apathy may be the natural reaction to the unpalatable current crop of politicians for the alternative, a rise in support for minor extreme organizations that give the appearance at least of straight talking will prove even more unpalatable.

As for aspirational values? How about we aspire to a better caliber of politician to represent us, one which accepts my own personal aspirations are my own business and the interference of politicians in that is not welcome.

Posted by Alex Keenleyside on June 18, 2007 11:15 AM
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Desperation looms, if I go for a long sleep I might wake up and think its all a bad dream!
Posted by Conkeyron on June 18, 2007 11:09 AM
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Janet , you miss the main point behind tax and spend....it is precisely that we need tax.That is what keeps the government coffers healthy.Tory tax cutters destabilised the economy and this resulted in huge interest rate rises.The loss in pension income is dwarfed by the gains in mortgage interest savings and property price increases.That many ordinary working people are now in the inheritance tax bracket is testimony to just how rich a country we have become.With stability, aspiration becomes easy to actualise.So more of what Gordon does is good for Britain.Have the honesty to appreciate what he has done for all of us!Behind his quest for aspiration there is a successful track record. David is a wannabe but Gordon is the real McCoy.
Posted by Iain Kennedy on June 18, 2007 10:54 AM
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Janet, you diagnose the problem with your usual clarity. All the present Honourable Members of Parliament can only speak "with forked tongue". Surely you should be concerning yourself with ridding Parliament of these moribund hangovers from the twentieth century by advocating electoral reform. Otherwise we are impotent under the present first past the post system. HELP!!!
Posted by Ray ADAMS on June 18, 2007 10:53 AM
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Aspiration: The ambition to own a conspicuously more expensive handbag tan one's neighbour or colleague.
Etymology - ASP- derived from Estuary English for Hasp and related to clasp, seen on many handbags; IRATION - contraction of irrational, describing the mental workings of this form of ambition.
Posted by David on June 18, 2007 10:44 AM
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This does omit the very deep doctrine of multi culturalism that has allowed Arab cultural mores to take root in the UK, setting up different norms for human thriving and controls on private desires. The desires of a cultural grouping, for example, to segregate boys and girls educationally, to prevent critical thinking about sacred texts, to allow ritual slaughter deemed cruel by legislation - such group desires shape 'private desires' and often away from the shaping desired by the 'nation'. How does Ms Daly, and of course Gordon with his Scotto cultural norms assuming that Scots' desires for a better deal financially than England gets, handle this growing factor in the 'state vs private individual' dialectic? We look to a second installment.
Posted by Ibn on June 18, 2007 10:27 AM
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Powerful analysis yet again from Dr Daly. New Labour made much of abolishing 'clause 4' and public ownership. But that was a lie: their ten years has been spent trying to break up strong institutions not controlled by the state and to insinuate state control everywhere. The state is no longer a background framework for individual freedoms, it now interferes in how we live with cctv observation, state only pensions, state controlling university courses, local councils propaganda about migrants, drinking, smoking, recycling, bin emptying, fathering of children...'nanny state' is a nice word, we increasingly live in a sort of 'national socialist' or 'state socialist' political body. Only the occasional commentator, such as this philosophically trained one, is seeing this radical move towards Big Brotherdom. Cameron certainly ignores it - an Etonian used to being Big Brother perhaps, and with no links at all to the bog standard middle class infantry, for whom that grocer's daughter had such resonance.
Posted by Cranmer on June 18, 2007 10:13 AM
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If, by "aspiration", Gordon and David mean "the pronouncement of a sound made with an exhalation of breath", I imagine that they have already caused most of us to do that on numerous occasions.
Posted by Mrs Ann Griffiths on June 18, 2007 10:04 AM
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There would be a difference between the two parties if one were committed to cutting taxes. Sadly neither Party can as we give so much money away to our 'other' government in Brussels.

My daughter is pessimistic for the future as she steps out in life. Gordon Brown told her in his budget speech that he was cutting taxes but she will suffer the loss of the 10% income bracket next year. She rightly feels she will never own her own home, so much for inspirational individual aspiration from Gordon Brown. Cameron can do no better until he goes for major tax cuts and that is the bottom line.

I have taken the issue into my own hands and have retired to Normandy where I shall pay lower taxes.
Posted by David Lott, Normandy on June 18, 2007 9:51 AM
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Oh - get real! This is about the 13 years of Gordon Brown's "aspiration" to succeed in the role of (not as) Prime Minister - no more, no less.

He has been but a heartbeat from the role for a decade now and suddenly we learn of all these suppressed "aspirations" - never mentioned during all that time.

Exactly who has he been playing the long game for - when all these "aspirations" could have been blended into government policy these past ten years? I'll tell you who - G Brown Esq.

Not a squeak of any of this while he was held to the back of a menu pledge with Tony Blair.

So let's be plain about this - 13 years of playing a false game so that now he can tell us about all his "aspirations".

Not the kind of politician I could ever trust. Not a man with the real drive of a leader. A sharp intake of breath all round?
Posted by simon coulter on June 18, 2007 9:50 AM
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Well said Janet.

Gordon "I'm not into spin" Brown thinks that simply by mentioning a morrrul compuss he will assure the electorate that he is capable of making the right decisions. It also masks the need to tell us what he believes in, because a compuss is a more abstract and aggregate concept, capable of identifying the right direction or belief in any weather.

However, I think as JT says we can work some of this out for ourselves on Brown's past performance. The instinct to raise taxes, to spend on unproductive state machinery including in particular a welfare state that dare not take a view that one type of family is better than another and which disincentivises its recipients from casting off the wooly, comfortable shackles of dependency. We know he is a friend of the unions.

Watch out for the PM / Deputy PM combination. Rather than being a token post, as was Prescott under Blair, this DPM job is so far distinguished by the rush to the Left of its candidates. At least Prescott was too stupid to talk real socialism, being nicely distracted by croquet and other trappings of office. This time around I suspect we'll have socialists in both jobs, the junior being the one who dares to speak in socialist tongues, and the senior man being the one who pretends not to believe in it but who (apparently reluctantly and even then, by stealth) approves the socialist mutterings of his backbenchers.
Posted by Brendan Fleming on June 18, 2007 9:28 AM
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Its a phoney war at the moment between Brown and Cameron where they both flounce off a pile of meaningless waffle to the media. As the article states, its unlikely that Brown will change his spots. Cameron is more of an unknown quantity. However for a leader of opposition to gain power they need to at least appear to be a fresh broom. Thatcher had this quality, so did Blair and they both swept into power. Can cameron come up with anything that will make th enation think that he's any different to Brown or Blair. If he can't it'll probably the devel we know.
Posted by Mark on June 18, 2007 9:22 AM
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I'll vote for Brown if he gives us a vote on Europe.

It's the first time a politician has actually considered giving this to us, and frankly given its importance its about bloody time!
Posted by tim on June 18, 2007 9:20 AM
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They both talk Socialist rubbish. We need a red blooded political party especially one which actually puts US first NOT every legal/illegal immigrant first. The only parties that make any sense are the BNP and UKIP.
Posted by David on June 18, 2007 9:18 AM
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F Edup of 6:28am is quite correct. The article is as wooly as the difference between the parties. The only dispute is over the minutiae of how to extract taxes in ever more novel and stealthy ways in order to maintain the over-regulated Quango state that grips us in its 'clunking fist' of bureacratic fascism. Meanwhile Snowball is due to take over from Napoleon next week apparently. "But still, neither pigs nor dogs produced any food by their own labour; and there were very many of them, and their appetites were always good."
Posted by O. Well on June 18, 2007 9:14 AM
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Yes... its the middle classes that bear the tax brunt...let the rich folk pay 10% tax as private equity fund assett-strippers. Meanwhile the £35,000 pa income earners are plastered to kingdom come when you are obliged to send your delinquent critters to private schools in order to get a standard European education. In England if you attend one of those private schools they throwin a posh accent for free. In Norway anyone on £1,000 (or below) per month gets a tax bill of zero......in Britain you pay nearly 28% plus the employer is paying an extra 12% national insurance tax...thats 40%. Gordon Brown and his elite club (Allen Greenspan) pretend that we have a perfect society....as reflected in the UK crime rate?
Posted by jack anderson on June 18, 2007 8:59 AM
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Well Ms Daley, It was a good effort with which to commence,if only because it asks the questions we all want answered.
To an extent you also answered them by sounding nearly as confused as all of us.
And when you're confused Ms Daley, we have a problem.
For most of the 19th and 20th Centuries social aspirations, trends, mobility were largely catalysed by commerce and industry with solid support from governments at key moments. !832 and 1867 come to mind as well as Gladstone and Disraeli between 1864 and 1880.
After two ruinous world wars we entered the age of government leading business and after a fair start this has become increasingly heavy handed as government used a great clunking fist to eradicate swathes of carefully nurtured social standards and practices which have been fine tuned through experience and common sense over the years.
You are correct. Brown wants aspiration on his terms,a delicate balance indeed, which is not Browns strong point. Brown feels such a contempt for the electorate, some might say rightly, that he thinks they will forget his "screw the telephone companies" franchise caper,his gold debacle,the Pensions and above the regulation after regulation after regulation.
Maybe they are right.
Everything Thatcher did has been now going out the window. How come Mr Cameron has taken this long to get round to talking on these matters or even coming out with some sort of manifesto? Too busy looking at Blair and Nu-Labour and trying to emulate them but not emulate them?
And why now? Why not wait for the clunking fist to wear out its cashmere glove and then come out with a real conservative manifesto. It won't work? Rubbish. People don't change that quickly.They still want what they wanted in 1979.Looking at the housing market and big brother government probably even more so now!
So Cameron come back to us. We may be staid in many respects but most of our opinions are based on experience, common sense and a pride in what it is to be British
Posted by Minnie Ovens on June 18, 2007 8:51 AM
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"I am going to, today, say something which has no meaning, and which is completely vacuous. I want to aspire to push the outer edges of that vacuity envelope. Its something that Tony has started and of which we in the Labour movement can be justifiably proud."

"I say this to you in order to reinforce that vacuous legacy of which we should all be so proud. What am I talking about when I say this, I hear you say. My reply to you is that it has no meaning, as we strive for excellence in producing a meaninglessness which cannot be surpassed."

"I want to use this cliche today in order to reinforce that message. Its an old well worn phrase, but as the saying goes, the old ones are the best. Its where my moral compass that I have inherited from my father points me.”

“I am going to talk to you today about individual aspiration.”

“This cliche is our best as it epitomises the nothingness of which we are all about. A nothingness so complete, that its match can only be found in the universe in the space between galaxies. This nothingness that we hold so dear is one that our opponents can only dream of."

"So I say to you today, I can offer you more cliches, an unbroken continuum of meaninglessness, and as the saying goes, you aint seen nothing yet."

Posted by No 6 on June 18, 2007 8:51 AM
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"The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the High Road that leads him to England" -Samuel Johnson. Now that Brown has accomplished his final aspiration and will be ensconced in No 10 then it is fair to say that many in these islands will see their noblest prospect (in aspirational terms) to quite simply "get the hell out of here" before the candyfloss economy he has constructed melts before our very eyes, for the "Carnival is Over" and the future isn't bright, it's got "red ink" all over it and who is going to pay the bills-surely not the middle classes?
Posted by Nick R on June 18, 2007 8:44 AM
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Janet, it's both less and more complex than your article suggests.

The fundamental political argument of the moment is not 'aspiration -to individuate or not', it's about whether politicians in Western Europe use the mechanisms of democratic government to preserve our venerable traditions of democracy or whether they use them to move to a new kind of politics - enlightened political dictatorship (albeit benevolent, informed and supportive of an electorate that cannot be trusted to get it right).

Even the briefest review of the way in which the European constitution is to be forced on its people shows that there is political consensus in Mainland Europe in favour of dictatorship. A united States of europe is seen as too important, politically, for any vacillation in the direction of deomcracy.

Here in the UK, that undercurrent is the political driver too and both Gordon and Dave agree with it, accept it and factor it into their own agendas. But, in a Country with such a sceptical population it remains very much a hidden agenda too and means that they both start from an essentially dishonest position when dealing with the public. As do most, if not all politicians.

You are right about Gordon, he is a control freak and he is not, in any sense of the word, a democrat. he knows at the very core of his being that he and he alone has the insight and the intelligence to make this Country and then the world a better place. He will not brook interference from his party, from Westminster or the populace. Unfortunately he is wrong - his tenure at the treasury shows hime to be, not a genius, but rather an inflexible, unimaginative, average sort of man who gets most things wrong and then has to use the entire mechanism of government to conceal the fact. Under Gordon, Labour Government will, of necessity, become antirley about effective propaganda masking the increaing failure of every aspect of our society and our nation (but interestingly not his).

As for David it's harder to say - it's no easy matter to be the leader of an unelectable party that's just reminded everyone of why it's unelectable. Is he a democrat? His recent attempts to bully the party over education suggest not. Is he, at heart, a dictator? His choice of spin doctor and his latest speech suggest yes. But, since he isn't going to be prime-minister any time soon, it's largely irrelevant just as are he and his party.

Cheers,

Charles

Posted by Charles Baxter on June 18, 2007 8:26 AM
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Mr. Brown has given us ten years of fudged figures and rapidly rising taxes. Moreover, in his bid to control everything we do to tne minutest detail, he has handed over about £70bn of our money to just a few management and IT consultancies that all have close links to New Labour. Who now believes in or cares about anything that the "Lying Scotsman" says?
David Crig
Author: Plundering the Public Sector
Posted by david craig on June 18, 2007 8:22 AM
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We know longer have strong leaders we get meglamaniacs, and Brown like Blair, is one of them. Brown loves state control, and see the smug smile on his face as he achieves it. He will never be happy untill he thinks we all depend on him, that's the only way he can boost his own self confidence, which is lacking big time.( how far do you bite your finger nails down, before you stop worrying) .As for boy Cameron, well that is all he is, just a privileged toff, not in touch with reality.
Posted by banachech on June 18, 2007 7:30 AM
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On one hand we have shallow twaddle from Cameron who is desparately trying to sound like he is all things to everyone. And on the other hand solid socialism from Brown.

Fat choice! Be realistic: Call Denmark and ask them to govern England again!

Posted by jorgen on June 18, 2007 7:29 AM
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Being tough on crime, as Americans well know, is to apprehend them and lock them up in conditions that they deserve. We need a police force that is feared by criminals, not obsessed with fiddling targets for government consumption, not wasting time 'detecting' domestic arguments and not obsessed with PC. Reversing the ratio of pen pushers to street officers would be a start along with the nonsense of feeding solicitors with the evidence so that the criminal can concoct a story.
That means tougher police and more jails. Is this what Cameron means? I doubt it.
Posted by Ken Allan on June 18, 2007 7:16 AM
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Not sure what point Janet Daley is trying to make here. Dave is slightly more correct with his message than Gordon due to our PM designate's track record?
So, how can she be sure that Cameron's going to go through with his message as well.
Recently, The Telegraph has published several articles which have failed to make a strong argument.
It is as though your journalists are afraid to have a clear viewpoint on anything these days, in fear of being branded radical, extreme and even rascist.
I hope I am proved wrong.....
Posted by John Tither on June 18, 2007 7:13 AM
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I am afraid that this acricle is as wooly as the whole concept.Experience shows that Mr Brown is a control freak and Dave could not score in an open goal if he tried. So i'm afraid for most us there is not much hope. Just more weasel words, while the farce goes on.
Posted by F Edup on June 18, 2007 6:28 AM
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You started well Janet, indeed, your encapsulation of the driving force behind the Thatcher years was exactly right.
However, I know you have to be supportive, but when you get to Windmill Dave, the passion leaves you and we are back to modern-day obfuscation and spin.
What will aspiration mean in a few months or years? Who knows?
Probably a respectable desire to see poverty banished from Africa, all criminals treated decently, a civilised respect for peoples of other cultures, a tolerance towards other religious beliefs, the fullest support for those less well off than ourselves and, of course, an enthusiastic attention to the environment.
None of it will have anything to do with personal ambition and drive - and that's just the Tory agenda!
Posted by Graham King on June 18, 2007 5:59 AM
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Dear Sirs,
A thoughtful if somewhat slightly rambling discourse. Allow me, without patronising the good lady, to clarify the distinction she is trying to make without upsetting too many of her readers, although she is a big girl now and can stand on her own two feet.
The government is playing a game with a two sided coin. Tony Blair has always dreamed of being the EU president, and Gordon Brown knows equally that by offering a referendum the populace will deny him the chance of buying a new pair of strides and re-inventing another mission impossible.
Boy David, on the other hand is attempting to pacify the voting population with his U turn on grammar schooling and appealing to those aspirants who believe in the reward for hard work.
Through all of this posturing however, one notices a carefully crafted balance on either side to deny too much freedom by granting the populace of the United Kingdom a written consitution and especially one written by the EU. One often wonders why, but the latent desire of the executive to maintain control overshadows all the public rhetoric.


Posted by Vivian J Phillips on June 18, 2007 4:56 AM
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Janet Daly has got it absolutely right, in a way that the New Conservative Party doesn't seem to understand.

If Mr Brown runs the government the way that his past history suggests he will, life is going to get even more frustrating than it is now.

Government should be about providing security from without, security for the individual locally and allowing individual freedom which doesn't adversely impact on others. Unrestrained capitalism is probably the nearest thing to Darwin's survival of the fittest, which is why we choose to have controls on it. But when government uses its powers to attempt social engineering the law of unintended consequences invariably means that the outcome is completely different to the intention.

Will Mr Brown have learnt from his many "mistakes" as chancellor? I would be surprised...
Posted by Rog on June 18, 2007 2:18 AM
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Reading 'Cameron reveals his blueprint for Britain' gives me some slight hope for the future of the Conservative Party. But to make this vision a reality will need some very hard and tough measures.

Brown has managed to increase the number of people reliant on state handouts, either in the form of salaries and pensions for hundreds of thousand non-jobs in the public sector, or even more who are on benefits, but not working even though fit to do so. Almost all will vote Labour regardless of the increasing centrist policies likely to emerge under Brown's premiership.

Unfortunately many of these non-jobs will have to go and real effort will have to be directed towards weeding out the spongers from the really needy when it comes to benefit allocation.

Smaller government, more local decision making, more traditional education programmes where ability is encouraged and rewarded and the overall cutting of red tape must be priorities for the Conservative Party; but all these things will hurt many people who have had it good under Labour.

Will David Cameron and his team have the guts to explain this to the voting population?
Posted by P T Stroud on June 18, 2007 2:07 AM
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As you say: "The real question is, who will draw the line between the public good and private desire? Who decides what the limits are on personal fulfilment vs the common purpose? Is it central government, local institutions or the community?"

Cue Oliver Letwin (link) and his article with all the long words that made Tony Blair giggle: "Cameron Conservatism ... seeks to identify social and environmental responsibilities that participants in the free market are likely to neglect, and then establish frameworks that will lead people and organisations to act of their own volition in ways that will improve society by increasing general wellbeing."

It looks to me as though there would have to be a social-and-environmental-responsibilities-neglect-identification Tsar. He or she would have the depressing job of enumerating all our moral deficits.

That list would be handed to the framework construction Tsar, whose job it would be to devise incentives which would subtly cause us -- of our own free will, remember -- to behave in a socially responsible way.

Now where have we come across this before? Erewhon? 1984? Didn't we used to call it "socialism"? And didn't Conservatives used to say that it is wrong to attempt this sort of manipulation (link) -- you have to take the society you get and govern as little and as competently as you can?

Social responsibility is society's job, not the government's.
Posted by David Moss on June 18, 2007 12:49 AM
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Maybe Brown should think again, I saw our Paras standing around Maggie T. today and giving her a great cheer.
Who would do that for members of the present Parliament, only eurocrats and cronies, or perhaps that is enough for Gordon.
Posted by KTC on June 18, 2007 12:14 AM
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