Dilemma for the Tories

12 April 2012

The best thing that can be said about the Conservatives, and it is not insignificant, is that under Mr Iain Duncan Smith's leadership, they have obeyed the first law of political survival: when you are in a hole, stop digging. In the past six months, they have wisely said little about Europe, and concentrated more on issues closer to voters' hearts, such as crime, hospitals and Britain's creaking transport system.

In the past few weeks they have also developed the sensible strategy of not simply knocking the Government for the sake of it - though that did not prevent IDS yesterday making a small swipe at the way Mr Blair "uses" his family for political ends. Mr Oliver Letwin's mature handling of Home Office matters mark him out as a rising star. Mr Michael Howard has also been sensible for praising the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Gordon Brown, for giving the Bank of England freedom to set interest rates - a decision that the Conservatives opposed at the time.

However, avoiding mistakes, and adopting a new tone, do not comprise anything like a full strategy for recovery. The party may have stopped digging, but it has not yet worked out how to climb out of its hole. As party activists meet in Harrogate this weekend for the party's spring conference, two large questions need urgent answers. First, what are the Tory's long-term intentions regarding taxes and public services? We know broadly what Labour intends: to make sure that core services such as the NHS, police and education receive the extra money they require, by raising taxes if necessary.

Do the Conservatives share Labour's ambitions, as some of their shadow ministers say, in which case what taxes would they put up? Or do they intend to avoid tax increases at all costs, in which case, how do they intend to provide world-class public services? Second, what plans do the Tories have to make themselves look more like the country they wish to govern? Out of 166 Tory MPs, only 14 are women, none are from Britain's ethnic minorities and none are openly gay. Mr Duncan Smith rightly wants his party to be more inclusive. The sharpest test of his intentions will be what he does to make his benches more fully representative of Britain today.

Careless talk

These extraordinary statistics suggest that in Britain we have a major road safety problem on our hands - especially in London, where four out of 10 drivers admit that they have regularly driven a car while talking on their mobile phones. A rough estimate - no detailed figures are available - is that this "phone abuse" may cause even more road deaths than the 500 a year that are the result of drunk driving.

Next month a private members bill will be introduced by Labour MP Janet Anderson that would make it a specific offence to use a hand-held phone behind the wheel of a car - as it is already in most European Union countries. It is crucial that this bill is given enough time to be debated seriously. A new law is not always the answer to cure each social problem as it is identified - arguably we have enough laws already. But legislation might well work here. It is simply unacceptable that anyone should be killed or maimed on our roads just because motorists choose to chat to their friends on the phone.

Snow job

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