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POLLY BILLINGTON: Leaders past and present smile
down on the Tories of Luton North. It's a seat they must win back but though
poll ratings are the best for years do they have the right message to keep
their new-won support?
AMANDA SATER: We mustn't get complacent,
we mustn't take the electorate for granted. We have been working extremely
hard in Luton campaigning and we will continue to work hard campaigning
and getting out there and meeting the people. It is so important for them
to know what I represent and what the party represents.
BILLINGTON: The messages the Tories have
been sending out here in Luton and across the country over the past year
seem to have helped to improve their standing in the polls, they're tax
cutting, they're eurosceptic, they're tough on law and order and they're
pro the traditional family. But there are fears these policies appeal mainly
to the Tory core vote and winning elections is all about building coalitions.
Are the Tories' current messages likely to extend their appeal to those
people who deserted them last time? Or are they alienating would be Tories
they need to win the next General Election.
DAMIAN GREEN MP: What I think we haven't yet done
is win back enough people to win a General Election. Psephologists all
say that because of the vagaries of the electoral system, we need to win
something like forty-five per cent of the vote, actually to gain a majority.
So, therefore to do that we need to look at the groups that possibly are
still wavering and it seems to me the obvious group are people who probably
voted Conservative in the past through the 'seventies and 'eighties, but
who regard themselves as moderate practical people not driven particularly
by ideology, not driven by any great dislike of the state, or public services,
who used to vote Conservative and who ought to vote Conservative again.
BILLINGTON: William Hague's most recent
and apparently successful approach to getting the show back on the road
has been dismissed by opponents as jumping on every passing bandwagon.
And there's unease within the party's own ranks that the new sense of direction
could come at a price. Some insist that policies shouldn't just run well
in solid Tory territory but should also appeal to other sections of the
electorate often seen as no-go areas for Conservatives.
GREEN: It seems to me obvious to
say it but it's still needs saying that it's possible to be gay and Conservative.
It's clearly possible to be a single parent and Conservative. And it
shouldn't need to be said that it's possible to come from any ethnic minority
and be Conservative. We don't want cricket tests in the Conservative Party.
BILLINGTON: Luton is home to a thriving
Asian community, many of whom run the kind of small businesses that should
be fertile territory for Tory campaigners. But recent language used about
asylum seekers has led to concerns that some would-be Tories of all races
find the party's rhetoric distasteful. It's a fine line to tread; maintaining
the principled opposition to economic migrants without people concluding
the party hates foreigners.
PETER LILLEY MP: You've got a core message
which is firm and the opposition will try and ridicule it and misrepresent
it as harsh, so you have to be doubly sure every time you say something
that you preface it by remarks that make your position clear, that you
are not hostile to people from other parts of the world, that you rather
admire those who have the initiative and the drive to up sticks and try
and get here and exploit a legal loophole that's temporarily created a
possibility, but we have to be firm and say let's try and help them solve
the problems in their countries by means other than opening our borders
to unlimited immigration.
BILLINGTON: In Luton's leafy suburbs Amanda
Sater can be sure that strong messages on tradition will chime with many
voters' views. But some Tories are concerned that those who don't live
in traditional families may be put off by too much emphasis on marriage.
The pro-family position of the party could alienate people who in every
other way share Conservative values.
GREEN: It needs not to condemn
people for being gay and one or two of my colleagues genuinely and sincerely
hold different opinions from me about this, but I think that that's not
the way forward, that we do have to make it clear that there is a sphere
of private life, of everyone's private life into which politicians should
not intrude.
BILLINGTON: Amanda Sater has to get every
possible vote if she's to overturn Labour's majority of nearly ten thousand.
Targeting to reach out beyond sturdily Tory voters is now the responsibility
of Steve Norris who stood as the party's candidate for London Mayor. But
others are sceptical. They believe basic Conservative principles should
have broad appeal.
DAVID RUFFLEY MP: I have to be careful here because
Steve Norris has a remit in the Conservative Party to look at targeted
groups. Some of us generally take the view that Conservatism shouldn't
get obsessed with target groups. I don't think we should try and ghettoise,
whether it be specific groups, whether it's targeting the gay vote or targeting
the black vote or the Asian vote, those are important groups in society,
but they will benefit as we all will from a sensible lower tax economy.
BILLINGTON: The Tory leader of Westminster
Council has decided that it's electorally as well as morally responsible
to reach out to all voters, across the borough he runs. It's a way of
showing those who wouldn't generally regard the Tory Party as a comfortable
home that the Conservatives have positive policies relevant to them.
SIMON MILTON: We need to expand the Conservative
message, we need to start talking to people who for some years we have
stopped talking to and people who may not traditionally be seen as fruitful
grounds for recruiting for the Conservative Party may do so if we can actually
open up economic opportunities to them and give them the chance to benefit
from the economy, from jobs, from better education in the future and I
don't think that that's something that the Conservative Party should be
ignoring.
BILLINGTON: Many Conservatives believe
that in order to broaden their appeal and win the general election their
priority must be to persuade people that they care about public services.
But with tax cutting as part of the party's identity and a perception
among the electorate that they are for the private sector and suspicious
of public provision, they have some way to go to persuade voters that public
services like health and education are safe in their hands.
GREEN: The Conservative Party has
never had any problem feeling emotional and visceral attachment to public
services like the Army and the Police. What I want to see is us to have
the same emotional attachment to defending and enhancing the prospects
of teachers and people who work in the NHS. And people who work in a welfare
state, generally. Because that I think accords with the general view of
moderate, sensible people in this country.
BILLINGTON: Luton voters, like voters everywhere,
are concerned about issues like education, health and social services.
With a commitment to low taxation the Tories might find it hard to convince
the vast bulk of people who use state provision that there won't be cuts.
The public's fear of losing services or having to pay for them might obscure
the Conservatives' low tax, pro-choice message.
SATER: People don't like paying
tax, I go out in Luton streets every day, people are saying they are fed
up of being taxed. What people want is to pay less tax and have more money
in their pocket to spend as they do, they don't want politicians spending
their money for them. They want to spend it themselves.
RUFFLEY: There is a moral argument
here, it isn't just about low tax parties being successful in the polls
as they certainly were in the eighties, I don't think that argument applies,
it's an argument about saying British people can spend their own money
better than governments can.
BILLINGTON: But some think tax cutting
on its own is so much hot air. In Westminster, the council always used
to compete with Wandsworth, another Tory authority, to have the lowest
council tax in the country. Not any more. The council is spending more
on services which residents want, including a big rise in spending on street
cleaning. The belief is that residents don't mind paying more for good
services. If they're well run, paying higher council tax bills won't feel
like pouring money down the drain.
MILTON: There is a danger that
if you only talk about tax year after year then you talk yourself into
a situation where you feel that there are no other issues which matter,
and the reality is that there are a whole range of issues that people care
about, tax is only one of them and you can't elevate it to the exclusion
of those issues if you're going to run a city successfully, and I think
that we are having that debate in our party and it's one which we are changing
minds on because people recognise that there can be such a thing as tax
cuts at the expense of the kind of city that people want.
BILLINGTON: The Tories have come to see
how Luton's famous hatmakers fashion new ideas out of basic materials.
Efficient, client-led enterprises epitomise all the methods the Conservatives
think the private sector does best. And in an era of increasing consumer
choice, they believe the idea that one size fits all is dead. Instead they'd
like to encourage more people to opt out of public provision, and take
up private alternatives specially tailored to their needs, be that health
insurance or pensions. The danger is Labour will accuse them of wanting
to privatise everything.
LILLEY: The Labour Party by dint
of repetition have convinced people that the Conservatives somehow have
on an agenda of privatising by which they mean actually making people pay
for their own health at point of need so that if someone finds themselves
in the accident and emergency unit if they haven't got their credit card
with them they won't be treated,
GREEN: We do need to be enthusiastic
about State schools and about the NHS. Most Conservatives are, in their
private life, there's just a peculiarity of tone that we sometimes seem
to adopt that we are rather grudging about the fact that these services
are provided by the State. It seems to me wholly realistic to say that
for as far ahead as we can see, the bulk of healthcare, the bulk of education
in this country will be provided out of general taxation, that the State
will procure it.
BILLINGTON: Can the Tories consolidate
and extend their support in time to win a general election that's likely
to be held next year? And will their views strike a chord with the voters
they need to attract? Their upbeat mood may not last long if too many
people give them a hostile reception on the doorstep.
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