DC on his conference speech
Prime Minister David Cameron writes:
"Today I set out how we can secure a better future - and build a Britain that everyone is proud to call home.
A Britain where hard work is rewarded. Not a free-for-all, but a chance for all: the chance of a job, a home, a good start in life, whoever you are, wherever you are from.
I set out our Conservative commitment for the next five years.
If you want to provide for yourself and your family, you'll have the security of a job.
If you work hard and do the right thing, you will keep more of the money to spend as you choose.
We will cut income tax for 30 million hardworking taxpayers - increasing the tax-free personal allowance from £10,000 to £12,500, and raising the 40p tax rate threshold from £41,900 to £50,000.
For those wanting to buy a home, we will help you get on the housing ladder - with 100,000 new homes, available to first-time buyers under 40 at a 20% discount.
We will make sure every child gets a great education so they can reach their potential.
And for those retiring, we will make sure you get a decent pension and real rewards for a life of work.
A good job, a nice home, more money at the end of the month, a decent education for your children, a safe and secure retirement.
A country where if you put in, you get out.
A Britain everyone is proud to call home - and a long-term plan to get there.
So let's finish what we have begun.
Let's secure a better future for you, your family and for everyone.
Thank you,
David Cameron
"Today I set out how we can secure a better future - and build a Britain that everyone is proud to call home.
A Britain where hard work is rewarded. Not a free-for-all, but a chance for all: the chance of a job, a home, a good start in life, whoever you are, wherever you are from.
I set out our Conservative commitment for the next five years.
If you want to provide for yourself and your family, you'll have the security of a job.
If you work hard and do the right thing, you will keep more of the money to spend as you choose.
We will cut income tax for 30 million hardworking taxpayers - increasing the tax-free personal allowance from £10,000 to £12,500, and raising the 40p tax rate threshold from £41,900 to £50,000.
For those wanting to buy a home, we will help you get on the housing ladder - with 100,000 new homes, available to first-time buyers under 40 at a 20% discount.
We will make sure every child gets a great education so they can reach their potential.
And for those retiring, we will make sure you get a decent pension and real rewards for a life of work.
A good job, a nice home, more money at the end of the month, a decent education for your children, a safe and secure retirement.
A country where if you put in, you get out.
A Britain everyone is proud to call home - and a long-term plan to get there.
So let's finish what we have begun.
Let's secure a better future for you, your family and for everyone.
Thank you,
David Cameron
Comments
i see you said this
But we know the bigger issue today is migration from within the EU. Immediate access to our welfare system. Paying benefits to families back home. Employment agencies signing people up from overseas and not recruiting here. Numbers that have increased faster than we in this country wanted…at a level that was too much for our communities, for our labour markets.
All of this has to change and it will be at the very heart of my renegotiation strategy for Europe. Britain, I know you want this sorted so I will go to Brussels, I will not take no for an answer and when it comes to free movement – I will get what Britain needs"
oh, I see. So you are going to go to Brussels and negotiate on changing one of the "non negotiable" four freedoms, and are also going to do this without a treaty change, and all by the end of 2017?
- is that what you are saying Dave?
(http://www.policyreview.eu/commission-warns-cameron-eu-freedom-of-movement-is-non-negotiable/)
oh and for the record Dave, if we do leave the EU and stay in the common market then the 4 freedoms would still remain. (they are movement of goods, services, capital and people)
like a cast iron guarantee on the lisbon treaty....yeah that one.
and i see today according to the daily mail, you are promising to reform the ECHR.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2778720/End-human-rights-farce-In-triumphant-week-British-values-Tories-unveil-plans-Parliament-judges-power-ignore-European-Court-crazy-decision-making.html
but dave, you done that once, you played that card in 2006.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4765861.stm
Oh, dear the electorate has a memory, what a shock. Now sort this out Dave, are you going to tell us what reform means as in what MUST be reformed, or are you going to prat on in the hope you lose the election?
what MUST be reformed for you not to support an out vote dave? and bear in mind over your performance the public, quite rightly, trust you less than they would trust a tea bag to hold back the tide.
Freedom of movement is very important to the EU, but not freedom to move and claim benefits, or move and commit crimes. We've already agreed some movement on these points and may well negotiate more.
Yes, there are limits to what is possible - but you know as well as I do that the freedom to negotiate of a Conservative majority government would be a lot greater than what is possible in coalition or minority government. So it is not reasonable to compare what Divd Cameron is promising a majority Conservative government would do with what we have been able to manage without a majority.
You also know as well as I do that David Cameron did not break his promise on the Lisbon treaty.
He gave a cast iron promise that if he came to power before the treaty was ratified he would suspend ratification until the treaty had been put to a referendum. But he didn't reach number ten until after the treaty had already been ratified.
Now i know that conservatives have claimed that the promise was conditional on the treaty not being ratified before his taking to no.10. but, but as you may well remember Chris, just like I most certainly do, there were no such conditions attached to it in 2009, the unequivocal promise was "we will hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty" not one mention of what he would do "if its not been ratified"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8078637.stm
That is exactly the point, that is why people do not trust them.
This is what Tim Montgomerie wrote on the subject in 2009 (e.g. before the election) in which he correctly predicted that UKIP and others would make untrue statements about what Cameron promised.
"DAVID CAMERON PROMISED A REFERENDUM ON AN 'UNRATIFIED' LISBON TREATY, NOTHING ELSE. In doing this, some will say that Cameron will have broken a “cast iron” pledge – made to Sun readers - to hold a referendum. That’s unfair. The sentence from that Sun piece that is always quoted is the penultimate sentence; “Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations."
But the final sentence (my emphasis) is just as important: “No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum.”
It is also important to remember when the pledge was made. It was made 26 months ago - crucially weeks before Brown was considering holding a 'honeymoon election' - and clearly referred to the ratification process."
All three parties promised at the 2005 election to support a referendumm on what was then called the European Constitution and eventually became known as the Lisbon Treaty. The Conservatives kept that promise by voting for a referendum, Labour and the Lib/Dems broke theirs by voting against and abstaining respectively. In the early stages of the ratification process, and while Brown was considering an early election, Cameron promised that if he came to power before the treaty was ratified he would suspend ratification while calling a referendum.
You may not remember that qualification - and sadly you are not alone - but I do.
"There was absolutely no wriggle room in the unambiguous pledge he made in September 2007. He offered a "cast iron guarantee" to put any treaty in front of the voters".
http://www.brugesgroup.com/eu/cameron-is-breaking-his-pledge-to-hold-a-lisbon-referendum.html?keyword=23
Are you familiar with the concept of Occams Broom? Well the conservative party memory does seem to be.
http://philosophicalquest.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/occams-broom.html
If you read the "Sun" article it clearly states that treaties like this should be put to the public in a referendum before being ratified.
But Cameron could only do that for treaties which had not already been ratified before he came to power.
At the time he made the pledge there appeared to be a real possibility of an election in 2007 which would certainly have allowed him to call a pre-ratification referendum on Lisbon, or a 2009 election which might have made this possible. But Brown did not call the election until 2010 by which time the Lisbon treaty had been ratified.