TORIES SHOULD BE BOLD ENOUGH TO HAND BACK SOME OF OUR MONEY

If Darling and his boss Gordon Brown thought their bag of tricks might fool the electorate, they were badly mistaken.

The Govern­ment’s ratings have plummeted since the Budget. One opinion poll published at the weekend showed Labour’s popularity  has fallen to 27 per cent, the party’s lowest level since the mid-Eighties.

The survey also found 67 per cent of people thought that the Government should tax, and spend, less.

The growing cynicism towards Labour presents the Conservatives with a golden opportunity to press the case for an alternative economic strategy. Yet there are signs the Tory Party may be too timid to exploit the public mood.

Scarred by three successive election defeats and pummelled by Labour propaganda that portrays the Conservatives as “uncaring”, David Cam­eron’s Shadow Cabinet seems terrified of departing from high-spending, high-taxing social­ism.

Shadow Chancellor  George Osborne has ann­ounced that an incoming Tory Gov­ernment will stick to Labour’s expenditure plans during its first years in office. Even more worryingly, Shadow Chief Sec­retary Philip Hamm­ond said yesterday there would be no tax cuts in the initial four years of a Cameron-led Government.

The justification for this dispiriting policy is the building up of Treasury reserves so that tax reductions could be offered in a second Tory term. But Hammond failed to recognise that, with his approach, there is precious little chance of a first Tory term.

The country is crying out for change yet his stance is just a counsel of despair, a pathetic surrender to Labour politics. If the Tories are not promising a change in direction from Left-wing greed and waste, it is hard to know why they think they deserve to be elected at all.

Cameron’s party needs to be far bolder. Labour’s approach has plunged our economy into a mess, leaving us vulnerable in the gathering storm of crisis. As the Con­federation of British Industry warned, our tax system is making us “uncompetitive” in a climate of turmoil.

British working households, hammered year after year under Labour, deserve a message of hope, not a threat that nothing will change. It is estimated the middle classes have been paying an extra £1,250 every year in tax since 2002. The Tories have a political and moral duty to make that burden lighter and pretending there is no room for significant tax cuts is absurd.

The Govern­ment will spend £618billion this year, with far too much of it frittered away on propping up officialdom and a corrupt welfare state.

Around £180billion is spent on quangos such as the £12billion Learning And Skills Council, which has done such
a woeful job in running further education, and the Regional Develop­ment Agen­cies, which are nothing more than expensive talking shops.

Top-heavy management is rife across the public sector, which has grown by more than one million employees since Labour came to power. Moreover, there should be tremendous scope for savings in the £169billion annual bill for the benefits system.

For all its rhetoric about reform, Labour wants to keep the racket going because it thinks handouts and bureaucrats’ salaries help to keep the party in power by creating a large dependent clientele.

The Tories should attack the Government for its epic misuse of public money, promising real tax cuts through a less prof­ligate management of services. They should point to the lesson from the Republic of Ireland where low taxes led to un­precedented prosperity.

Tax and spend has failed dismally and the British public’s tolerance with this disastrous approach is at an end. The Tories should seize the mom­ent, not sit quivering in fear.