Is it actually too straightforward?

I read in the Times this morning about Conservative MPs complaining that they don’t understand Oliver Letwin’s policy briefings.

I recommend a really simple explanation to voters: Under a potential Tory government, if you want to do something sensible, you will probably be able to. But it will be up to you to make it a success.

There was a guest at this morning’s Tory Reform Group meeting with Oliver Letwin who was a school governor, who kept asking, but what if x, what if y, how will we be able to do this? And Oliver’s reply, while in keeping with his general style of explaining in detail, was that he and his fellow governors and the head-teacher would be in charge of the school – so they could do what they wanted. If they were a success, they would keep their pupils and therefore their funding. But if not, then the school would close because another one had been more successful.

It strikes me that perhaps the key difficulty with Tory policy is not that there’s not enough of it, nor that it’s too complicated, nor even that it’s not what people want.

It’s that people are finding it really hard to believe that anyone wants to win power in order to give it away.

No related posts.