Firstly, that a sensible discussion about the size and scope of the state must start from a clear understanding of what it does and how much we spend on it. And secondly, that only when people understand what things cost can they decide whether they are an essential or a nice to have.

It shouldn’t be difficult to find a list of what the government spends our money on. But it REALLY is. The first government site on google when you search for “uk government spending breakdown” is number 6 in the results. The top five are all a private undertaking. And the one from the government is from the ONS which is incredibly unintuitive and you have to know the technical jargon for what you’re looking for.

So here is another little idea. How about a really simple site from the Treasury, using the data which is already supposed to be published, detailing what each department spends, on what. Later, we could perhaps add why they spend it (which would take us into another of our ideas, a regular review of all spending with a view to reducing it by a targeted amount).

I recently heard some fascinating figures on aid spending (and this is very generalised, but makes my point). Apparently, most people think that we spend around 20 per cent of our total government expenditure on aid and development. It is not even projected to reach the 0.7 per cent agreed by the UN decades ago until 2013. Similarly, Peter Kellner of YouGov has written (using the BBC licence fee as an example) a great piece about placing figures in context.

As Stewart Pearson and Louise Mensch are both fond of saying, knowledge is indeed porridge.

I do think we as a society have an obligation to help those who can’t help themselves. But I do not see why people should have to pay for those who won’t help themselves to live in nicer houses, have holidays and other things that those who work can’t afford, and – crucially – not have the worry that most working people do about the security of their jobs, and what they can give their children.

The changes proposed by the Government will not affect the disabled, war widows/widowers or households with a worker. I don’t think that is unreasonable and in fact I question whether they go far enough.

As, incidentally, do most people.  A YouGov poll this weekend shows that 36 per cent of people think that the cap should be under £20,000 a year.

If we’re agreed that the aim of this cap should be to make work more attractive than not working, has it really been thought through in full? Is there a better way to ensure that those who work and do the right thing gain, and those who won’t… don’t?

As Mary-Ann Sieghart wrote in the Independent this morning, it’s that fabled squeezed middle who feel most strongly about this. It is they whose wages have fallen 4 per cent, and who face rising inflation.  In one of his many attempts to be coherent last year, Ed Miliband said that Labour couldn’t be seen as the “party of those ripping off society any more”. Given that he has decided that his Lords will vote against the Government tonight, this is unlikely. But the thing that might really cut through is something that I don’t think the Coalition has the guts to do…

He should propose a cap at the level of the minimum wage. Which would be raised to make sure it is actually liveable on, as I have argued previously (building on Ed Miliband’s own very Conservative idea of tax breaks for companies that pay living wages) and paid for by reducing the level of tax that companies pay – because it is pointless simply recycling money.

I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t know if any of the above is practical. But the aim must – surely – be to radically reduce complexity, increase the disposable income and incentives for people in work, and properly encourage people into work.

The Tories after 1997 had two essential problems – they had lost their reputation for economic competence and they were seen as nasty. Both of those problems needed a fundamental shift in public opinion for us to be elected to government again, and both could only be addressed to a limited extent without being in government. As I’ve said before, the ultimate detox could only ever be achieved by actually governing and showing that we’d learnt the lessons.

So now here we are in government. And both of those concerns are, I think it is fair to say, still live with some people. Therefore we need to give final proof that we are economically competent (I’d actually prefer more than that, but that’s the bare minimum) AND that we are not lunatic, head-stamping evil-doers (again, better than that would be my preference, obviously).

And we keep saying we’re cutting squillions, and it will be awful for everyone, and no-one will have anything, and so on and so on. Yet quite often it turns out that what is suggested has been considerably worse than what gets passed. I read the other day, for example, that despite all the blood-curdling threats, just six Sure Start centres have closed.

Here, then, is my theory. To regain a reputation for economic competence, and given how badly Labour had over-spent, we had to show we were willing to make some harsh decisions. But then – wouldn’t that make us look nasty?! Well yes – but which is worse? Happily, having to be in Coalition with the Lib Dems has removed this as a short-term dilemma as we seem to be willing to let them take the credit for rowing back from some of the more aggressive cuts (though by the way, I don’t think this simplistic reasoning is necessarily true, nor do I think that we should be rowing back).

An alternative theory is that they hold up the spectre of much worse cuts than they need to so that when only a proportion goes through, it feels like a relief. But that’s a much less interesting theory, particularly as you can only cry wolf for so long.

That’s all fine in the short-term. And I suppose if you want to go into the 2015 election saying, hey we’d have cut even more and made your lives even glummer, you might even think it would work because people are becoming so conditioned to gloom.

But here is the problem. We can and should regain both our economic competence and our not nasty reputation. Because, as Amol Rajan wrote in this lovely piece, one day it will be Morning in Britain. And no-one is going to vote for “We’d just be nastier without them”. So we need to both prove our economic competence AND demonstrate that we understand that people need their government to be there for the essentials, and some nice to haves, and crucially that it wants to enable them not stymie them.

You’d expect me to say this, but perhaps all these new groupings (the 40, the 2020, the 301…) are essential to underscore our understanding of that problem. Last night, I saw the i’s front page

These new groups are essential to argue against such nonsense. They need weight, they need numbers and they need to be loud. But here’s an idea – why not show that they are in fact today’s Conservative Party: because we understand that we cannot win without resolving those two core problems for good?

That every ten years (say), the government should have a requirement to cut (say) ten per cent from its spending.

I have no idea how practical this might be, or how it might fit in with the convention that governments don’t bind future ones, or how it might actually be done. Nor even if ten per cent would be the figure chosen. But as Jenni Russell [£] wrote this weekend, and as I’ve argued for years, we need to make decisions about what we want the state to provide and what therefore we are prepared to pay for.

As I’ve previously argued, I am fed up of hearing in response to a complaint, “but we’re spending £X million on Y programme”. Because just spending money is not always – or indeed usually – the answer. We can be much more imaginative than that; and a regular review would embed that into our way of thinking.

Of course it would need to be much more than a cosmetic exercise, and it would need to be done with a degree of maturity from politicians, citizens and the media (so no screeching that your own pet project must be sacrosanct – if it’s working, it would stay), but I think the principle of taking a step back from the endless escalation and examining what is working, what is not and – crucially – what is necessary is a good one.

But the Iron Lady is not about Margaret Thatcher’s politics, nor even her life and times. Nor is it – really – about dementia and old age. All of those things are used as tools to portray the hugely moving story of a person saying goodbye to her past and especially to her great love. That she had been Prime Minister, won the Falklands, won the Cold War, won the battle to restore Britain’s sick economy and set in train an economic rocket-booster was only window-dressing to this film.

The breadth of her time in power and the changes which Britain and the world underwent in that time would make it hard to construct just one story, but I would love to see a film about Margaret Thatcher the doer, the thinker, the ruler, and the political colossus. This is not that film – but I don’t think that matters and in fact perhaps we need this humanising film before we will be ready for the other.

One criticism I’ve heard a lot is that the film shouldn’t have been made in her lifetime; I disagree entirely, for two reasons – firstly that as such a huge figure in so many people’s lives, her persona is basically public property anyway and secondly I think that the treatment of her decline was handled with impressive dignity and no little restraint.

I wasn’t sure whether I would like it or not; I often find films about politics quite annoying because they get behaviour or facts wrong, or because they are too simplistic. But even though there were some things that didn’t ring true, and some shaky presentations of historical fact, I loved the Iron Lady. For the purposes of this, I didn’t care that she was the first female Prime Minister, I didn’t care that she won the Falklands, I didn’t care that she lost her political touch in the end (as all politicians do). What makes this a great film is her saying goodbye to Denis; it was beautiful and painful to watch.

As shown time and again through the film, so much of her thinking was centred around individuals and what they can do to contribute to wider society; perhaps that re-stating of Thatcher as a real human being rather than an ideology, a cipher or a hate-figure is this film’s real achievement.

This is weird. Normal people do not do that. One of the disappointments I’ve had (it’s not a huge one in the wider scheme of things…) is that despite over 50 per cent of the House of Commons being newly elected in 2010, they still all moo at each other, wave bits of paper about, jabber and wail in PMQs and generally behave like they’re off their faces at a karaoke bar instead of supposedly running the country. It has been pointed out to me a number of times that the newly elected 2010 intake  didn’t suddenly wake up on 4 April 2010 and decide to be MPs, so something clearly attracted them before that.

I’ve argued for years that the problem the Conservatives have had (and could  have again if they don’t recognise it) is that what tickles the fancy of people who are committed enough to be members is not enough to win an election. We must offer a rounded, coherent, sensible policy programme focusing on the things that voters care about as well as the things that really get the grassroots going. I don’t – despite what some may think – believe that the Tories have particularly been banging on about Europe in the last few days; it has clearly been on the agenda, it is something that matters, and the immediate issue of the euro-zone problems needs to be sorted as well as the longer-term ones of what the EU does and doesn’t do (and how well it does them).

But believing, as some seem to, that the No to the proposals on Thursday night is THE THING that is going to win us the next election is simply untrue. Firstly, for those who are really obsessed with the EU, it will soon be realised that this No hasn’t changed anything else about our relationship with the EU, so they will soon find something else to criticise. And secondly, yes a strong leader standing up for Britain’s interest is good, but if the only thing he is seen to do is say no to the EU, then most voters will (sensibly) realise that that’s not enough. By the way, I don’t think this will happen though if some had their way it would be the only thing we ever talk about.

What Conservatives talk about and deal with and focus on and make a difference in must be the things that matter. I have no doubt that we can make a convincing case for decentralisation, communities, the Big Society, sustainable growth, our education and health policies, and all the things that I voted for.

In the same way that the 50p tax rate is a totem, the amount of time Conservatives spend talking about the EU in relation to other matters is important. The real question is, will those who are determined to go “on manouevres” understand this?

One of the things it should do better is to put in place policies that promote growth and prosperity (and one of the ways to do that would be, as I argued in November, to promote economic competition between its members).

So does the agreement reached on Thursday night between the 23 (or 24, 25 or 26) resolve the euro’s problems and promote growth? Actually, no. Which is – among other reasons – why David Cameron was right to say no to it. And furthermore, is why he is correct to refuse to allow those participants who have agreed to it to use the institutions of the EU to implement it.

So much for the facts of the agreement itself. I imagine we’ll be back here again in a few months, with various leaders trying to regulate the wrong things again, and failing to address the real issues of too much spending, too much debt and not enough dynamic wealth creation.

The real question of national interest is pivotal. Angela Merkel, who normally I rather like, said on Thursday evening that the members of the EU should put aside their national interest and act in the interest of the Union. I think that is completely the wrong way round to look at this. The EU should only EVER act for the long-term, national interest of all its members; why would any nation sign up to something that is against its national interest? All that happens is that such decisions breed resentment and enshrine policies which do damage.

Where agreement cannot be reached on something for the national interest of all member states, separate inter-governmental ones should be reached between those nations that do agree – outside the EU as an institution – exactly as had been done this weekend. Crucially, however, one of the reasons the EU can be a good thing is that sometimes the long-term national interests of its members are at odds with short-term political imperatives (climate change policy being the obvious area here); and in those circumstances that is where the EU comes into its own.

What about the politics? The switch in sentiment about David Cameron has been extraordinary. It seems that the only way he has been able to make people believe he means what he says has been to do this on the EU – none of the other things  he has delivered on seem to have made any difference. Apparently the only thing that matters to certain parts of political interest groups is your stance on the EU which is very discouraging when you think about all the other things that matter too.

This is not the start of our path to being Switzerland (lovely though Switzerland is). Nor is it the start of withdrawal from the EU unless various other things happen as well. Sadly we are still going to have to come back to the questions above about debt, spending and growth. Importantly, we are also still signed up to all the various Treaties that came before this weekend.

What I think it can be is a wake-up call and a reminder to all members of what the EU is actually for. It is not unfeasible to have an EU where different groupings decide to do different things because it is in their interests while not being in the interests of others (the euro and Schengen are two obvious precedents). It is not even undesirable. Quite the opposite in fact.

The Ugly

Our deficit and debt positions are ugly. Our economy is going to get uglier. Most peoples’ living standards are too.

The bad

Well I’d argue that increasing benefits but effectively decreasing pay is bad. I kind of understand why it’s being done and if it were the case that the poorest people in work would benefit from this the most it would be fine but I suspect that isn’t the case.

I also am very unkeen on the rowing back on the promises to be the greenest government ever – it is possible to go for clean growth and to be a world leader in clean technology but if you don’t incentivise it, it won’t happen. And, while I know it makes me sound like an out of touch metropolitan, I still think we should maintain carbon pricing and shift taxation from good things like work and saving onto bad things like pollution.

I also am slightly at a loss to justify the government spending taxpayers’ money on supporting businesses or mortgage applicants that banks won’t lend to; surely that is part of what got us into all this trouble to begin with? I’m prepared to be argued out of this one but it does seem counter-intuitive.

The good

Hmm. This is tougher. All the infrastructure projects are individually no doubt needed, but I wonder if they add up to something at a national level?

More people being able to buy their own home is a good thing for many reasons (not least, because people who own their homes are likely to have greater respect for and engagement with their surrounding communities) and I’m very pleased that the proceeds will be ploughed back into building more homes. I’d suggest, though, that as well as building new homes we should be aiming to refurbish existing buildings which have fallen out of use.

The Youth Contracts sound great if expensive (my maths is very shaky – maybe I should go to one of these new Maths Free Schools); I calculate that £1 billion for 410,000 young people for 6 months at 40 hours a week works out at something like £2.34 an hour which is £93 a week which is almost double the £50.95 of Job Seekers Allowance for 2011.

There are lots of other details but my overall impression is a lot of little bits and pieces. It all sounds very big and bazooka-like but is it? More to the point, should it be? Many of the measures announced since May last year will take time to have an effect; part of the criticism that we all, as Conservatives, made of Labour was that they used to do little widges here and a little tightening there, and then go back year after year and fiddle about some more; there was very little certainty, yet one of the very greatest confidence-builders any economy can have is advance knowledge enabling businesses to plan.

I’ll come back to the bazooka versus widges argument tomorrow, I think – it’s a much bigger conversation.

“There is money around for things when we think they are worth it, such as [weekly] bin collections.”

This caught my eye in Ben Brogan’s always excellent morning email (sign up here, he reads all the papers so you don’t have to).

Leaving aside why central government mandating and funding weekly bin collections is wrong and counter-productive (though I suppose if they mandate it, they should fund it), I think this illuminates an essential truth about public spending.

Taxpayers’ money should only be taken for and spent on things that bring a greater good. As Nick says, the state should be no bigger and no smaller than it needs to be. It is indefensible that the state wastes so much money – for example, I still cannot believe that we spend a median of over £5,200 per pupil each year and there are still so many children leaving unable to read and write at even a basic level. It’s wrong that we spend money on things that don’t produce a good enough outcome – and equally wrong that we don’t spend money on things that can really make a difference.

A further thought, however. Despite us all knowing that we’re basically out of cash (as Liam Byrne so delightfully put it, “Dear Chief Secretary, …There’s no money left”) I continually hear from MPs ‘hurrah for £X million for my constituency’. Obviously it is their job to champion their constituencies but it encourages us all to think that the only way to pay attention to something is to throw money at it.

I have just read Fraser Nelson’s article in Friday’s Telegraph, about the summer riots, David Lammy’s new book (which sounds surprisingly good) and the play at the Tricycle Theatre which I’ve just booked tickets for. In it, he says:

“This problem is – fundamentally – all about people, not money. Relationships and education matter far more than handouts… The riots were an invitation to see things differently, to look at families and how government bankrolls their breakup.”

As we argued again and again (over the riots but also before and since), there is a real and significant opportunity for the government to demonstrate how the Big Society can and should revolutionise our country. For that, however, it will need to also make some big decisions about what it spends our money on, how it talks about what is and isn’t possible and indeed desirable for governments to do, and – vitally – how it decides what is and isn’t worth it.

Is @PlatformTen becoming more like @ConHome? I ask because of blogs like this from @DJSkelton: http://t.co/CneGDgpE

10 November 2011 6:57 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@TimMontgomerie

Tim Montgomerie

followed by

@TimMontgomerie @ConHome @DJSkelton we're all Conservatives, after all...

10 November 2011 8:12 pm via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@PlatformTen

Platform 10

followed by

@PlatformTen @ConHome @DJSkelton We are! I actually think gap between trads and mods is narrowing sharply at present

10 November 2011 8:18 pm via TwitterrificReplyRetweetFavorite

@TimMontgomerie

Tim Montgomerie

Then 

Centre left, Cameron loyalist, 2020 Conservatives group still plans to challenge Tory Right with new activist website http://t.co/vVRpsGob

16 November 2011 5:38 pm via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@MichaelLCrick

Michael Crick

As I wrote in the Conservative Way Forward magazine during the party conference, ‘modernising’ (which is ugly shorthand and not something I would ever talk about in that way directly with voters) is not about being contrary; it’s about explaining what it is to be a Conservative in today’s Britain.

And as I wrote at the end of last year for the Coffeehouse blog, nor is it about setting up artificial dividing lines between traditional and modernising Conservatives because Conservatives are by definition both traditional and modernising.

I have always argued that it is essential to have a broad policy platform. I have always argued that we must earn the right to be listened to by the electorate by understanding their hopes and their fears. It is not incompatible to – like Tim – wholeheartedly support our policy on international aid and our policy on controlled immigration.

The exchange with Tim on Friday evening and the publicising of the 2020 group made me think more deeply about why we are seen to be so far apart. Is it mostly a question of tone and emphasis? Or is it something more fundamental about how we think, and what we think about?

Given all this frantic pamphleting, websiting, and positioning, there are a few things that I think need to be said. Firstly, we are all Conservatives. We have in common a desire for a state which does what it needs to and no more, which costs what it needs to and no more. We start from the premise that it is good for people to work, to engage with their community, and to have ambition. We agree that there must be opportunity but people must also see the fruits of their own efforts (or not, as the case may be). We want power to rest at the most personal level possible – so that outcomes are determined by effort and will and desire rather than a uniform mediocrity.

Secondly, so much of the ‘tension’ between (and we’re going for shorthand here) traditional and modernising Conservatives focuses on tone. As I said above, Conservatives are both; the way that we present ourselves to the electorate is however crucial. We must engage with the things that are important to them as well as to us. Crucially, all governments do, however, have to think about and act upon things that don’t seem to have an immediate impact on people’s daily busy lives – that’s why making sense of, for example, climate change policy or international aid policy is so important. As Conservatives, we largely want to get to the same places; where we do perhaps differ is how we should get there.

And thirdly, it really does come down to what kind of society we want to live in. Something I’ve often half-thought about the modernising Conservatives is that we are perhaps not aggressive enough. But then I realise that I don’t want to always be carping – I want to propose things that make changes for the better. I want to live in a country where we are positive and have confidence, and where we have discussions about what will work rather than just complaining that someone else is wrong.

Winning in 2015 is going to be about so much more than just having a good manifesto. It will need us to have governed competently and fairly, and explained to voters what we’ve done and how we’ve made their lives better. And most importantly, it will need us to make significant inroads into the hearts and minds of the 67 per cent of people who think we don’t like them.