Someone has to say it. The UK is now a Socialist country. Government accounts for about half of GDP, and too much of the rest is subject to petty regulation and the diktat of Westminster. I’m presuming that most of the readers of this blog agree that this is a bad thing.

The Problem – The Socialist Consensus

There is a theory called the “Overton Window”, named after Joseph Overton of the Mackinac Center, a US think tank. It is described in some detail here. Briefly, the idea is that one starts with an unthinkable and extreme policy, and thus the battlefield of is moved towards it. Thus, one might start by saying that the NHS should be abolished, and when outrage predictably occurs, people will be glad when one “concedes” some ground and settle for significant reform.

The problem with the Conservatives in recent years is that we have failed to take control of the debate. Cameron is a prime example of this – rather than trying to frame the debate, he has simply accepted that he must move towards Labour lest he be seen as too radical. Labour have won the election even if they lose – they have moved the Conservatives towards a Big Government consensus.

So, What Do We Do?

It is difficult to break a consensus. We have got to the stage where massive deficits, punitive taxes and a huge bureaucratic burden are the new normal. The Fabians have succeeded in moving the Overton Window towards socialism to the extent that people believe that any new enterprise requires government support (the idea of a “Green economy” is typical of this).

What we must do to move the debate onto our terms is to offer a fundamental discussion about political philosophy – we must ask whether a man in a concrete office knows what we want better than we ourselves do. Once we establish an ideology, we start a grand national conversation about what the State should do. We emphasise that there is no sacred cow immune from slaughter. We force every government programme, every Quango, every bureaucracy to justify its existence. To achieve political viability, of course, we make compromises. But the fundamental question is no longer whether something should be abolished, but whether it should continue to exist. It sounds like a linguistic nicety, but we cannot build an electorate willing to vote Tory without changing the way they think about us.

I doubt that Mr. Cameron will take this advice, but I emphasise it again. If elected, the Conservatives’ Emergency Budget should be an audit of everything Government spends money on. Ask not whether something should be cut, rather whether it should be spent. Frame the debate. Move the Overton Window. Show the country a real Conservative vision for Britain. The socialist past is only a burden if we allow it to be so.