Tories in Rwanda

Francis Maude has written a MY WEEK diary in the Sunday Times, telling of his week teaching English in Rwanda. He's out there with Andrew Mitchell and his group of 100 Tory activists, candidates and MPs. It brought back a lot of memories for me of my trip there last year. Andrew asked me to go with them again this time, and, believe me, I was tempted. It was one of the most memorable weeks of my life.

If Andrew's political career ended tomorrow he could look back with pride at what he and his entourage have achieved in their time in Rwanda. They have left a lasting legacy in a country which has pulled itself up by its bootstraps after its terrible experiences of the mid 1990s.

Makes you proud to be a Conservative.

UPDATE: Tobias Ellwood tells of his experience in Rwanda on ConHome.

Telegraph Column: How the Tories Are Preparing for Power

Read my latest Telegraph column HERE. It discusses how the Tories must prepare for power and how they should learn from what Blair did wrong in his first term.

• Blair wasted his first term and only realised how to exercise power by the time it was too late.
• The Tory team is more experienced than the Labour team were in 1997
• Difficult decisions will need to be taken in the first few weeks
• Francis Maude's role in preparing the Tories for government
• Why the Tories should learn from Michael Heseltine
• How to deal with the civil service
• Which books aspirant Tory Ministers should read.
  

It's Not Tax Cuts, It's Labour's Client State the Tories Should be Worried About

Francis Maude has given an interview to the Telegraph this morning in which he makes some very important points, especially on the Tories' preparedness for government. However, the top line of the interview is again on tax cuts. This is unfortunate, and it was also needless. In the interview Francis says...

"There are those who think that if you commit to massive tax cuts then people will automatically vote for us, but people are not impressed these days with politicians promising tax cuts that look like us serving our electoral self interest by appealing to their self interest."

I can't think of anyone who wants the Tories to commit to "massive" tax cuts. I certainly don't. It would indeed be madness in the current economic climate. What people do want to know is that David Cameron and his team are philosophical tax cutters, a point which Francis does indeed make. It's not in the interview but this appears in the front page news story...

He stresses that the desire to cut taxes is "deep in our blood"...

Good. Some of us had been wondering. Let me say it again. No one expects up front tax cuts. What we do expect to know is that the Party is still committed to the principle of the lowest rate of taxation possible.

The debate now needs to be shifted onto the unsustainable levels of public spending. This is not a subject on which the Conservatives need to be defensive. The 1979 election was won in part because people realised the government was spending more than it could afford, and Margaret Thatcher promised to do something about it. People are beginning to realise the extent to which government spending has grown and they feel uncomfortable with it. A 'client state' has grown which must be eliminated. Simon Heffer takes the view that the members of this 'client state' are never going to vote Tory in a month of Sundays so it doesn't matter if the Tories upset them. The trouble is, that this 'client state' has grown so large that in marginal Labour seats they do indeed matter. But even those who have benefited from it realise that it is not sustainable in the long term. I think this is the Tories' main challenge - to develop a radical, coherent and marketable policy to deal with Labour's 'client state'.

Donal Blaney has an altogether more, ahem, robust view on Mr Maude's interview. Sits on the fence, does Donal. :)

Francis Maude Should Be Left to Get on With his Job

A great thing about the last fifteen months has been the absence of constant newspaper speculation about who's up and who's down in the Shadow Cabinet and who might be moved where in a reshuffle. Quite clearly David Cameron will reshuffle his team when the new Labour leader takes over. He'll judge who's best at shadowing the different Ministers in Labour's team.

The only person who has really been a victim of speculation is Francis Maude. There's a diary piece in The Observer today speculating that he will be replaced by either Chris Grayling, George Osborne or Andrew Mackay.

I've had my differences with Francis but if I was David Cameron I would think long and hard before moving him. He's bounced back well from the failure of the 21st Century Party project and has instituted some much needed reforms in the wider Party. He is a good lightning rod too. The Party's finances are in good shape, the move to Millbank has been smooth and he's organised a successful Spring Forum. We've had far too many 'eighteen month' Party Chairmen over the years. Maybe it's about time that this one was left to get on with his job, without constantly looking over his shoulder to see who is wielding a knife.

Labour: Police at the Front Door, the Bailiffs at the Back...

Francis Maude has this evening given a speech to POLITEIA about political party funding. He uses a very good line: "The Labour Party are currently trying to use Sir Hayden Phillips' review of party funding to rescue from their current dire plight, where they have the police at the front door and the bailiff at the back."

I'm going to quote the press released version of his remarks in full because I think this is such an important issue. Conservatives should be looking to shrink the role of the State, not increase it. Francis is right to say that the Conservatives will walk away unless the Labour Party concedes the point on union donations, but he should go further. He should make clear that the Conservatives will not take any further State funding, beyond that which they already receive in 'Short Money' to fund Opposition activities. This is what he told POLITEIA this evening...

"Democracy needs vigorous political parties. And parties, like charities, need money. But party funding cannot go on as it is. Last year, we set out a coherent package of proposals to clean up the way we fund our party politics. Many of the proposals would work against our partisan interests, but we took the view that they were nonetheless in the public interest. One of those proposals was the suggestion - controversial to many - that there might be an increase in state funding. But let me say this. There should be not a penny more state funding without a single, comprehensive cap on donations - including companies, the unions and individuals. The public will be highly cynical if political parties award themselves lump-sum handouts without fundamental reform.

Any additional state funding should be there to assist and encourage parties to re-engage with the electorate, for example, through tax relief on small donations and a matched funding scheme for those who do not pay tax. State funding must not reduce the dependence of parties upon their own activists for fundraising. Nor must it be allowed to increase the distance between the parties and the electorate.

The Labour Party are currently trying to use Sir Hayden Phillips' review of party funding to rescue from their current dire plight, where they have the police at the front door and the bailiff at the back. Sir Hayden was asked by the Prime Minister to examine ways to restore public confidence in politics by changes to the way parties are funded. Labour have come up with a clever wheeze whereby by its own dominant funder, the trade union movement, would remain unaffected by any checks or caps, while opposition parties would face stringent caps on what they could spend either nationally or locally. This is a recipe for a one party state.

After all the party in Government benefits in myriad ways from the simple fact of being in Government. Hundreds of taxpayer-funded special advisers and Government press officers are at the beck and call of Government ministers. And today sitting MPs, most of whom by definition belong to the Government party, enjoy generous taxpayer-funded allowances which can be used to employ staff, run websites and distribute leaflets to their constituents. So to impose a rigid annual cap on party spending, whether locally or nationally, would be to entrench a huge advantage in favour of an incumbent Government. No opposition party could ever agree to that, and no Government party should ever contemplate it.

Let's be quite clear: the reason party funding needs reform is nothing to do with how much is spent. It is all about the concern that a large donor can buy political influence or patronage. That can be addressed by the simple measure of a cap on donations. Both the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives have proposed a cap of £50,000 a year. We think this is a level at which no one will seriously fear that a party is subject to undue influence. This would cause us some financial pain, but we are willing to undergo that in order to win back the public's trust in the political process.

Labour by contrast have entered a resounding veto on any such cap. They maintain that the trade unions are a special case. Well, in one sense they are. The proportion of Labour's funding provided by a handful of trade union leaders is around 70%. And there is nothing remotely covert about what is given in return. It is all there to be seen. To pay for the 2005 election campaign, Labour reached a deal with the unions called the Warwick Agreement. The unions stumped up £12 million to fund Labour's election campaign. And in return, there was £10 million of taxpayers' money for the Union Modernisation Fund, extra rights for strikers, and a deal which means civil servants still get to retire earlier than those in the private sector.

This has all the hallmarks of a straightforward commercial transaction. It is precisely this kind of trade - cash for policy, or in the case of the Union Modernisation Fund union cash in return for taxpayers' cash - that has eroded public confidence in the integrity of the political process. Reform of party funding that failed to remedy this would be shockingly cynical and a terrible wasted opportunity.

There would be a further democratic penalty if local expenditure caps of the type being promoted by Labour were to be introduced. Such caps would be the enemy of what we all say we want to encourage, the engagement of local people in local politics. Restrictions on how many leaflets councillors and candidates could deliver would be deeply counter-productive to local political engagement. If a local party managed to persuade twenty thousand local electors to donate £5 a head towards local campaigning outside of election periods, there would be a universal cheer. This would be seen as exactly the right kind of political reinvigoration. Yet local spending caps would prevent this.

And there is a further penalty. Who would want to be a local party treasurer, with the threat of going to jail if a leaflet isn't reported? Who will carry out the detailed and complex compliance work in areas where there isn't a professional agent or organiser? What exactly would count as a campaign expense outside election time? Should a letter from a councillor to local residents be deemed political expenditure?

We recognise that there is concern that single donors might have disproportionate influence on local parties. This can be addressed simply and effectively by a cap on donations, perhaps with a lower cap for donations at a local level. We must ensure that political parties are the champions of the people, and not be absorbed into the fabric of the state or smothered by state regulation."