I'm the best bloke for the job

THE Conservative Party is about to choose a revolutionary new leader.

Revolutionary because he will be the first person in the party's history to stand at the despatch box with a mandate from all the members of the party, not just MPs. Labour chooses its leader through a tortuous series of electoral colleges designed to weigh all the interests in the party; Conservatives have played the simple democratic trump card of one-member-one-vote.

This radical innovation alters the dynamics of power within the party. It needs to be used to develop a new relationship between the party at Westminster and the party in the country. For too long, there has seemed to be an apartheid between the two. Policy has been developed at the top of the Parliamentary party with barely any participation from backbench MPs, let alone the membership outside. Now, in return for endowing the leader with an enhanced legitimacy, members have the right to demand that they should be given more influence.

The membership in the country is an immense resource of expertise and experience. As well as serving as councillors, Conservatives are active in health trusts, housing associations, voluntary bodies, fundraising campaigns, school boards and the magistracy. This is a great army of citizens mobilised for the public good, which should be the foundation stone of Tory policy development - ideas drawn from real people doing real work in their own communities rather than the focus-group fads of Labour echo-sounding.

WHEN we talk about reform of the great public services we should remember that we have thousands of members who are active in the public services, both as professionals and volunteers. If we are seen to be making sensible use of their expertise, we could attract thousands more. If we can use the skills of many of our members in the country, we can help bridge the gap between our MPs and the public.

So the election of the Tory leader should bring a new shape to the party.

And there is no doubt about where we have to direct that new energy and policy building - to the defeat of "New" Labour with its lack of intellectual roots, denial of clear principles and refusal to take tough decisions.

I am standing for leader because I want to defeat Labour. I am not interested in futile flag-waving gestures. I am certainly not intent on some glorious "last hurrah". I want to win and I want to become Prime Minister.

With a shadow cabinet representing fully the different shades of opinion in the party and the active commitment of a stronger membership, I believe we can forge a powerful weapon ready and able to take power at the next election.

We all know that we cannot win unless we bring home the "lost" Conservative voters. More than six million people voted Conservative in 1992 and have deserted us since. I believe that I am the leader most likely to rebuild a party where they can once again feel at home.

I know that the media like to dwell on my "blokeish-ness", as if that were enough to "connect" with people. Well, I do like a pint, I do enjoy a cigar, I can happily spend the day at a cricket match or a Formula One grand prix and I do like my jazz. None of these, as it happens, are qualifications to be Prime Minister. What I also have is experience at the highest levels of government in precisely those areas like health, education and running the economy, which we all agree are now at the heart of the electorate's concerns and where we must offer better performances.

When I did those jobs I defy anyone to say that I earned a reputation as a big soft "Leftie". They called for tough, unpopular, radical decisions, but the NHS trusts, fund-holding GP practices and grant-maintained schools all began to work well.

In government you have to be able to take the tough decisions and fight for the respect that brings you - something, perhaps, Tony Blair has yet to learn.

The public accepts that the public services need more cash. But the public also accepts that cash will never answer the problems by itself. Most of the money must go straight to the schools, hospitals and community services. With the money must go local responsibility for local decisions and service delivery. The Government must provide a structure, measure performance and hold the professionals accountable for their standards. The difficult part of this kind of reform is how to do it in a way which restores professional pride, avoids bureaucracy and delivers improvements which patients and parents can see and understand.

I wrestled with the details to achieve that local pride and public understanding years ago. We must now struggle again to produce the new policies that will do the trick. Labour has tried, failed and will fail again.

EUROPE must cease to haunt the Tory party.

The public regarded us as so obsessed by it during the election that if a party spokesman had stood up and read the weather forecast for Brittany and the Paris basin, people would barely have noticed. It is tempting to seek to "park" the issue out of the way, hoping that Blair will not inconveniently bring it out of the lay-by to taunt us. But we do have to face the need to put this bout of extreme euro-scepticism behind us because it is part of the impedimenta which have made us unelectable.

I have set out my views clearly because I am not prepared to offer a false prospectus to the party. Had I quietly skirted around the issue I would have been accused of duplicity and trimming. We must say less about Europe, and what we say must be more balanced and realistic. We need to slay the dragon of our obsession with Europe so that we can move on to set out our agenda for government.

Before they win the battle for votes, parties have to win the battle of ideas. We need the ability to hit Labour hard immediately and send out a message that we are serious about winning power.

We need to draw on the experience of other countries across both the Channel and the Atlantic as well as our own analysis. We need to be the party that can both think and fight, understand and articulate people's aspirations and create the means to deliver them.

Copyright 2001
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