SIX KEY PLEDGES FOR BRITAIN

At today's Conservative conference David Cameron promised real action in six key areas to help get Britain back on its feet

1: Act now on debt to get the economy moving
Deal with the deficit more quickly than Labour so that mortgage rates stay lower for longer with the Conservatives.

2: Get Britain working by boosting enterprise
Cut corporation tax rates, abolish taxes on the first ten jobs created by new businesses, promote green jobs, and get people off welfare and into work.

3: Make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe
Freeze council tax and raise the basic state pension, recognise marriage in the tax system and back couples in the benefits system, support young families with extra health visitors, and fight back against crime.

4: Back the NHS
Increase spending on health every year, and make the NHS work for patients not managers.

5: Raise standards in schools
Give teachers the power to restore discipline, and create new smaller schools.

6: Change politics
Reduce the number of MPs, cut Whitehall and quangos by a third, and let taxpayers see where their money is being spent.

Comments

Sackerson said…
6. Isn't reducing the number of MPs another step in the de-democritization of the UK?
8:32 am
Anonymous said…
Great. Now tell us how you intend to achieve it.
6:44 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Sackerson: a 10% reduction in the number of MPs won't have that effect, no.

Anonymous - follow the link to the Conservative party main site and there is a great deal of detail there. Believe me, you will get a lot more before polling day.
1:53 am
Sackerson said…
Chris: thanks for your courtesy in responding. I have to disagree: a 10% reduction in MPs is an 11% increase in constituency voter numbers and so a corresponding decrease in the value of my individual vote. And where will it end?

KING LEAR
Ourself, by monthly course,
With reservation of an hundred knights, by you to be sustain'd,
Shall our abode make with you by due turns.
GONERIL (Murmurs to Regan) He may enguard his dotage with their powers,
And hold our lives in mercy.
(To King Lear) It is not well! Dismissing half your train, come then to me.
KING LEAR (To Goneril) What, fifty of my followers at a clap!
REGAN I entreat you to bring but five and twenty:
To no more will I give place or notice.
KING LEAR What, must I come to you with five and twenty, Regan? Said you so?
REGAN Speak't again, my lord; no more with me.
KING LEAR (To Goneril) I'll go with thee:
Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty, and thou art twice her love.
GONERIL What need you five and twenty
REGAN or ten!
GONERIL or five!
REGAN What need one?
8:38 am
Chris Whiteside said…
Rolf, I certainly agree that if you were to reduce the number of MPs dramatically there would ultimately be a harmful impact.

I think there is an optimum range for the size of a legislature. If you look at the size of the most effective parliaments around the world, there is a quite a range.

Most of the most effective parliamentary bodies have between 100 and 500 members (the ones at the smaller end of that range generally being for small countries, or upper chanbers of a bicameral legislature like the US Senate).

Once you go above 600 members it is increasingly difficult to run a parliament in a way which allows all its members to be fully effective, and most of the "parliaments" which are much above that size are rubber stamps.

There has been a gradual upward shift in the size of the House of Commons, and trying to put a halt to this would be a good thing.
1:58 pm
Anonymous said…
Let's just not replace those MP's who are standing down at this election, that should save some money.
7:00 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Might be a bit tough on those who live in those constituencies if the arrangement was that simplistic!
11:51 pm
Anonymous said…
are elected MP's really going to vote themselves off the gravy train?
I would like to know how it is going to be done, and how many generations it will take to be done? Typical all talk no action.
1:04 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Obviously it will have to be done by the boundary commission - any other method will lead to at least accusations (and possibly the fact) of gerrymandering.
6:56 pm
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