Iain Duncan-Smith relaunched the Conservative Party yesterday, announcing that a future Conservative government would abolish tuition fees. Of course, political parties have to reach out to those outside their traditional supporters. But IDS is going about it the wrong way.
Margaret Thatcher got lots of people living on council estates to vote for her. It was not by being left-wing, but by applying her free-market principles to make their lifes better. By giving them the option to buy their houses from the state, she helped them to rise up the ladder of economic prosperity. By allowing parents to have a say in which state school their children could go to, power was taken away from government bureaucrats, enabling parents to take their children to away from failing schools. Her strategy for getting non-Conservatives to vote Conservative was entirely consistent with her principles. Voters believed her policies because they saw their consistency.
By simply adopting socialist policies – and moving the Tories to the left of Labour – IDS is alienating his core support. But worse, he is unlikely to gain the votes of those who support his policies anyway. There aren’t many Old Labour opponents of tuition fees that are going to jump ship and vote Tory. They are much more likely to vote Lib Dem, a rather more convincing party of socialism.
The Tories should do something useful like abolishing the tv tax. Cut taxes and give the bbc a poke in the eye.
How ironic (and yet strangely approriate) that the Tories should have named their new policy initiative “The Fair Deal”.
No doubt IDS or his advisors know that this was the name given to President Truman’s domestic program in 1953 which included:
“a full employment law, a national health insurance plan, extended social security, aid to education, civil rights legislation, public housing, universal military training, an increase in the minimum wage, and a fair employment practices committee.”