Cameron on Marr

Today was David Cameron’s turn to be interviewed by Andrew Marr. I wasn’t looking forward to this interview. I feared it would be full of generalisations and he wouldn’t be specific.

He was better than I thought he would be. He detailed the help a Conservative government would give to small businesses, which included making it quicker to be able to start a small business and preventing private landlords forbidding people from running a business from their home address. For me, this is far too little.

I have argued the case on abolishing Regional Development Agencies before. Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been thrown at these agencies and in every key performance indicator, they have failed. They have not reduced economic disparity between the English Regions, nor have they been drivers of economic change and the rate of businesses registering for VAT has slowed down since their introduction over ten years ago.

The Taxpayers’ Alliance has researched this subject and has recommended they be abolished and some of the money saved could be used to reduce the rate of corporation tax paid by small businesses. This would help entrepreneurs stay in business, encourage people to start-up their own business and help create more jobs. If David Cameron is serious, this is the sort of announcement he should have been making this morning. His announcements are welcome, but are not enough. He has to be radical.

At the risk of boring my readers, unless he proposes truly radical change, he will not seal the deal with the voters. Too many see him as Tony Blair Mk II.  Margaret Thatcher was elected three times because the voters trusted her to get on with the job. Many of them didn’t like her, but they still voted Conservative. Being touchy, feely is all well and good, but you want a prime minister to lead, be tough and not be frightened of being unpopular because of the hard decisions they have to make. A prime minister needs to be trusted and respected, not loved. Brown is not trusted or respected by the majority, but Cameron is not that far in front of him.