Remember Labour’s defining mission: ‘education, education, education’? Yesterday we had the Conservative equivalent ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’.
In what some might see as an important day in the development of the mission of the Conservative Party, the Chancellor pledged the goal of Full Employment:
‘Today I’m making a new commitment. A commitment to fight for Full Employment in Britain, making jobs a central goal of our economic plan.’
What does this mean in practice? It suggests that cutting taxation and cutting the deficit is all about creating the conditions for work, not that tax cuts, and balancing the books are ends in themselves. It creates a moral imperative for economic reform which is not just about rolling back the size of the state. It means that when Conservatives are knocking on doors, we are in a powerful position to explain why the Government has had to take tough decisions – because of a passion to create jobs and get people back into work.
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