Willetts tackles the three Ds

How the Conservatives should respond to “disorder, debt, and distrust” is the theme of David Willetts’ speech to the Conservative Policy Forum. Willetts, one of the most cerebral Conservative ministers, argues that the riots, the deficit and the anti-politics mood have come together to create a triple-challenge for the party.

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Ross Clark

Britain is living beyond its means

But Willetts’ speech is also the Tory response to Ed Miliband’s charge that they are breaking the promise of Britain: the idea that each generation does better than the next.

Willetts, who has written a book on the subject, accepts that fairness between the generations is the biggest challenge in politics right now. He cites polling, which I understand to be the Conservatives’ own, that shows that people’s biggest anxiety today is that their children will have a worse life than them. Two thirds of people fear that the younger generation will have less opportunity than them.