Conservative Election Campaign Launch
Not to be daunted by the weather – I did manage to get up to Shirley for the launch of the Conservative Election Campaign with David Cameron’s poster with all the local west midland parliamentary candidates and the Rt Hon Francis Maude MP. David Cameron has launched into the New Year with some really strong attacks on Labour – here is a selection below:
- Fifth of infantry ‘unfit for war’ - The infantry is the tip of the spear of the conventional Army. This is the same sad story resulting from a decade of Labour’s neglect of our Armed Forces and there is no sign of improvement. This situation is not sustainable.
- Russell Group of universities warns of ‘meltdown’ - Labour said there would be flat spending settlements for departments, and Gordon Brown and Ed Balls keep promising there’ll be increases in education spending. These university cuts just show how dishonest Labour are being about the scale and consequences of their debt crisis.
- David Cameron’s speech on families - A Conservative government will help the poorest families in society. David Cameron has explained how we will keep Sure Start, and how we will strengthen it by recruiting 4,200 new Sure Start health visitors to provide universal support to families with children under five. We will improve Sure Start by taking it back to its original purpose of early intervention, increasing its focus on the neediest families, and better involving organisations with a track record in parenting interventions. Drawing on the key principles behind our wider public service reform programme – practicality, independence and accountability – we will create a new kind of Sure Start Children’s Centre to replace failing existing provision.
This is part of our mission to build the strong society based on the values of responsibility and aspiration. For that, we need responsible individuals. We can help people take more responsibility for themselves by focusing on the three areas where character is formed in our early lives – in the family, at school and through the influences of wider society – and take action to ingrain responsibility through each.
- Conservatives ‘plan crackdown on sexual images’ - It’s high time the children’s market and advertisers show much more restraint in the way they operate. We don’t want to resort to regulation, but we will make it clear that if business doesn’t exercise some corporate responsibility, we will not be afraid to impose it. The media needs to show some restraint as well. The premature sexualisation of our children has already gone way too far. There is too much arbitrary violence in the lives of children too young to understand irony or fantasy. Businesses have got to understand parents don’t like it and want it to stop. David Cameron has asked the Shadow Cabinet to consider all options in pursuit of our aim of stopping the premature sexualisation and excessive commercialisation of our children.
- Conservative approach to Labour’s National Insurance hike - Our first priority on tax is to avoid the increase in National Insurance Contributions planned by Labour – a tax on everyone earning over £20,000. But we will not make a specific pledge until we find the savings to pay for it. As David Cameron said yesterday, we will set out our approach before the general election.
Photo: Helyn Clack with with David Cameron’s poster at the launch of the Conservative Election Campaign.
