The Conservative leadership contest has descended into a low-tax auction, which is not a good thing. The implication is that the Conservatives think government should be minuscule at the very moment when private enterprise is letting us down – the energy companies are raking in cash and spending it on stock buybacks – and the state seems to be on its knees.
We live in a country where it’s become widely accepted that if you call an ambulance, it won’t show up for several hours; the borders are wide open; social care is under-funded; and the police have ceased investigating certain crimes. If anything, this is a moment to rediscover an older Tory tradition of state-building.
Call it One Nation, paternalism or, if you’re feeling cheeky, Tory socialism – a philosophy, not a doctrine, because it begins by rejecting economic dogma, even materialism on the basis that man does not live by bread alone.
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