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Posts Tagged ‘Conservative Party’

“Given the current economic situation, what Practical steps would your party take to help graduates find work next year?”

Tagged: Conservative Party, employment, TCS

As published in this week’s TCS.

We are portrayed as a ‘lost generation’ of graduates, entering the market burdened with personal debt and without the employment prospects to match. The outcome of the next election will be crucial for us. It will determine whether we finally have a government willing to free the economy from the burdens of punitive tax and ill-planned regulation, so it can offer us the opportunities we need.

The Conservative Party is calling for immediate action to help graduates hit by the recession. ‘Job Clubs’ will provide human support for applicants where bureaucratic job centres are failing. Postgraduate education will receive all the funding government can afford. Tax breaks on new jobs and proposals to encourage loans to businesses through a temporary National Loans Guarantee Scheme should also be crucial in preventing further graduate unemployment.

Ultimately, such proposals are constructive but limited by the state of the economy under Labour. With the next government facing a public debt of over £800bn, it is impossible for any party to realistically suggest it can bank-roll an expansion of public sector graduate jobs. The comprehensive and realistic plans for economic recovery proposed by the Conservative Party are the real solution to helping graduate prospects.

Our economy can be rebuilt and strengthened through greater fiscal responsibility in government, and greater international competitiveness. The debt burden that the Labour government has imposed on our economy is acting as a dead weight on recovery and expansion. The Confederation of British Industry, which represents a third of private sector businesses, has highlighted a balanced budget as a critical factor in achieving future growth and stability. With studies showing cuts of up to £96bn are possible through targeting waste, the Conservatives will remove the burden of debt from the economy while maintaining all necessary services.

In a fiercely competitive global economy, our graduate opportunities also rely on the creation of an attractive market for employers. The Conservative Party will overhaul our complex and expensive tax system, where so much is wasted on bureaucracy. In its place, straightforward and lower corporate taxes will restore Britain’s international competitiveness to ensure the best companies settle here.

The employment opportunities we aspire to cannot flourish in an economy burdened by debt, regressive corporate tax and knee-jerk over-regulation. Nor can they be conjured up with short-term, expensive government schemes.Only a Conservative government will restore the stable and competitive economy that will bring real, productive jobs to Britain.

Any Old Iron

Tagged: Conservative Party

Alan Duncan has been demoted. He is no longer in the shadow Cabinet – he is now merely shadow prisons minister.

A very sensible decision by Mr Cameron – Duncan is insufferably smug and never fails to give the impression that he’s in politics for all the wrong reasons. He was recently rated at negative 65% in a ConservativeHome survey of Party members.

BBC Article

Goings-on in the European Pantomime

Tagged: Conservative Party, EU

No panto is complete without a dame, and the venerable Edward Mcmillan-Scott played the laughable dowager with great gusto in the opening matinée yesterday afternoon.

The classic (and simple) fairytale of electing a group leader was twisted and stretched somewhat by EM-S’s decision to put his own interests ahead of the interests of the Party and his constituents. In the original story, Michal Kamisnski would take the throne (namely the Vice-Presidency of the Parliament) and Timothy Kirkhope would battle Geoffrey van Orden for leadership of the ECR block.

However, the Tories’ old allies in the EPP-ED decided to punish the British Conservative Delegation by electing EM-S as Vice President, effectively denying the approved ECR candidate, Michal Kaminski the post. It’s a fairly ridiculous sort of group that plays such silly politics, and it’s a fairly ridiculous sort of “parliament” that facilitates nonsense like this.

Gallant as ever, Timothy Kirkhope stood aside as leader-designate of the ECR group and let Kaminski take the helm. Consequently, ECR is the first europarliamentary bloc with a leader elected from one of the accession states. Perhaps more importantly, he is a sound anglophile, eurosceptic and free marketeer. As Dan Hannan explains, “When Michal made his first speech as an MEP, he hymned the praises of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, to the unfeigned horror of the EPP. He is, in short, the closest thing to a British Tory outside the Carlton Club.”

Although an apparent hero won the day, the villain still had his revenge. Although EM-S had the Tory whip removed (quite rightly), he’s a five-year season ticket for a first-class seat on the gravy train. Perhaps more selfishly, he’s given more fuel to critics of the Tory European policy [both inside and outside the party] and shattered Cameron’s fragile facade of EU-unity.

By behaving in such a reckless and self-centred manner, EM-S has served only to prove that the European Parliament is little more than an irrelevant talking shop, little more than a third-rate panto for dames, jokers and villains.

=> Link to Tim Montgomerie on why EMS should be expelled

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