Howard sets out “radical proposals, simple language” approach
Conservative leader Michael Howard has defended his “ten words to remember” and “timetable for action” policies, saying simple language is best fitted for explaining radical ideas.
And in a swipe at the Labour Party, he says that only “less substantial fare” needs “pompous rhetoric and noisy abstractions”.
In a speech to the Newspaper Press Fund in Glasgow, Mr Howard reminded his audience of the timetable for government that his party put forward at their recent conference, and his ten key words for party activists: school discipline, more police, cleaner hospitals, lower taxes and controlled immigration.
He said he had set out to put “showy principles and political theory” to one side.
He added: “Some people have confused [our] timetable’s modesty of expression with the scale of its ambition. They’ve wrongly assumed that simplicity signals triviality.
“It doesn’t. Simple language is best used to explain radical proposals. It is only less substantial fare that needs to be seasoned with pompous rhetoric and noisy abstractions to attract attention.”
Setting out his party’s plan for taking power, he maintained that government must do less.
“It means putting aside the prejudice that just because the state pays for a service – like health and education – it has to provide it,” he said.
The other key element was choice, which he said would transfer power from politicians to parents and patients. Labour might talk about choice, but their insistence on centralised control meant they could never deliver – as their seven years of broken promises showed, he claimed.
