There is little to be garnered from David Cameron’s interview with Fraser Nelson of the Spectator. However, despite his deafening silence on policy of late, the excellent Fraser Nelson does pursue two interesting lines of discussion that elicit rather telling responses.
Firstly, Cameron claims that: “the sort of tax system that I believe in is one that’s effective in raising revenue — rather than one that is trying to make a particular point". Thus, the Conservative's are not going to soak the rich without just cause. The problem is that with all matters political, the truth is easily manipulated – thus, this is no insurance at all. The principal reason the rich should not be taxed at a higher rate than others is that it is morally wrong to do so. A Conservative government should drop the 50% rate and institute a flat tax for this reason alone.
This point is connected to his second interesting utterance:
There is an easy radicalism, whereby you take the latest idea that comes out of the Institute of Economic Affairs or wherever and just say, “well, that’s it",’ he says. ‘Proper radicalism is thinking through how you are going to get from A to B to C to D. I think that’s what we’re doing.’
As we all know, the IEA releases many excellent reports every year that should and could be turned into government policy in whole or in part. It might be easy radicalism, but it is at least innovative policy as distinct from New Labour. The problem with Cameron’s position is inability to stand up and state whether or not he in fact radical. He alludes to the fact that we should tacitly accept that he would get to “D" in the end, but a position is so unprincipled is not worthy of respect and hardly worth getting excited about.
Cameron's thoughtful revolution is no revolution at all. The state of the nation demands cool hard policies, yet Cameron is still coasting on autopilot. Victory is not watching Brown crash and burn, but instead to come to the country with the policies upon which this country can thrive.
