TOUGH ACTION will have to be taken to reduce the United Kingdom’s escalating national debt, or economic recovery will be stopped in its tracks, Conservative Party leader David Cameron told his party conference yesterday.
Emphasising debt reduction as one of his priorities, if elected, Mr Cameron said the problem had to be confronted. The Conservatives, he added, could only “take the country with us” if everyone understood the gravity of the situation.
Mr Cameron sought to assure voters that he had the experience necessary to become prime minister. “Don’t get me wrong. I have no illusions. If we win this election, it is going to be tough. There will have to be cutbacks in public spending, and that will be painful,” he told party members in Manchester.
Drawing a distinction between himself and Margaret Thatcher, who once famously said “there is no such thing as society”, Mr Cameron said: “There is such a thing as society. It just isn’t the same thing as the State.”
Emphasising that the National Health Service (NHS) is “safe with us”, Mr Cameron pointed to the treatment his son, Ivan – who died earlier this year – had received from his birth from NHS staff. “We will never change the idea at the heart of our NHS, that healthcare in this country is free at the point of use and available to everyone based on need, not ability to pay.”
Doctors would be released from “the targets you hate” set by the Labour government. But, in return, the public will have choices about which doctor treats them.
Teachers would be given greater powers to deal with disruptive pupils: “We give our children more and more rights, and we trust our teachers less and less. We’ve got to stop treating children like adults and adults like children.”
The schools budget should be spent in the classroom and not on wasteful consultancies and quangos. Parents sending their children to State schools should see their offspring enjoy the same standard of education as is given by private schools.
The UK under Labour, he said, had become the most centralised state in Europe, which clashes with the traditional British belief that the state is the servant of the people, and not their master.
Placing himself firmly in favour of the union, he said many in the UK in recent years have begun to say that they don’t know what it is to be British, while some in Scotland want independence and some in England say let them go.
“To be British is to be open-minded. We don’t care who you are, or where you’re from. If you’ve got something to offer then this is a place you can call home. But if we want our country to carry on with this proud, open tradition, we’ve got to understand the pressures of mass immigration and that’s why we need to put limits on it,” he said.
On the Lisbon Treaty, Mr Cameron did not go further than saying his party is seeking a referendum. But he did make clear that William Hague, a Eurosceptic, will be foreign secretary if the Tories win next year’s general election.
On Afghanistan, the Conservative leader promised a “credible and doable” policy: “We are not in Afghanistan to deliver the perfect society. We are there to stop the re-establishment of terrorist training camps.”
Pointing to the current tensions between British military chiefs and 10 Downing Street, he said Afghanistan policy in his government would be run by a war cabinet involving key ministers and generals.
Pointing out that this year marks the 25th anniversary of the IRA’s bombing of the Brighton hotel, Mr Cameron said the Conservatives “know only too well the pain and grief that terrorism brings”.