Conservatives unveil general election promises
Conservative Party leader Michael Howard seized the march from Labour yesterday, unveiling several key tenets of his party’s election manifesto, months ahead of the next general election.
While Labour’s election machine held off the launch of a poster and mailshot campaign given the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean, Mr Howard set the campaign in motion, disclosing his personal foreword to the party manifesto, setting out how Conservatives would cut taxes and adopt a tough line on immigration and law and order.
The expectation in Westminster is for a May 5th general election, though Labour has until June 2006 to hold the vote.
In the introduction to the manifesto, Mr Howard said a government with the right values could make “a real difference”.
Reasserting the values of entrusting free enterprise; empowering individual responsibility, celebrating nationhood, rewarding hard work, praising excellence and fostering ambition, Mr Howard said these “right” values belonged to the “forgotten majority”, “the people who make up the backbone of our country”.
“They have been forgotten, neglected and taken for granted by Mr Blair. He asked them to trust him and when they did, he let them down,” he added.
On taxes, the manifesto said, the Conservatives would cut levies when prudent to do so.
On immigration, Mr Howard said a Conservative government would set an annual limit on the number of people entering Britain.
“In an age of global terrorism we have lost control of our borders. We have no idea who is coming into or leaving our country. This poses a real potential risk to our nation,” he said.
Mr Howard also attacked the culture of ‘spin’, saying: “He makes promises he is unable or does not intend to keep. He has politicised the civil service. He has undermined the integrity of government. Spin, manipulation, keeping Labour in power – these are what count in Mr Blair’s world,” he said.
“I will restore integrity to government. I will stop party political spin doctors issuing orders to civil servants. I will make the Office for National Statistics truly independent of ministers, so that people can once again trust the statistics on which they judge their government.”
Mr Howard also rebuked the Liberal Democrats under Charles Kennedy, saying their leader offered the same “false solutions” as the Blair regime – “more government, more power to Brussels, higher taxes, a relaxed approach to rising crime and immigration”.
Mr Howard will officially unveil his introduction in a speech at Wellingborough today.
Labour said the manifesto signified a return to a “failed Tory past”.
Alan Milburn, Labour election chief, said the Conservatives were “launching Thatcherism in instalments”.
“The first sentence of any Tory manifesto should be an apology to Britain’s hard working families for the Tory failed past of boom and bust, mortgage misery and cuts to schools, hospitals and the police,” he said.
