IT'S TIME FOR CHANGE

Whenever the next general election comes, we will be ready with a plan to change Britain for good that is bold and ambitious. We will be ready with policies that meet the great challenges and opportunities of our times and which are the product of the most serious, comprehensive policy review ever conducted by an opposition party.

We will be ready with a message that reaches every part of this country and inspires every person in this country - a message of change, optimism and hope. It’s time for change.  This will be the choice at the election: state control from Labour or freedom with the Conservatives.  And we will say to the British people – “choose freedom”.

Our Approach

Our Values

We believe in a Britain that combines collective security with individual opportunity; a Britain that achieves these things through social responsibility, not state control; and a Britain where a strong society gives everyone the chance to shape their own life. Our values are based not on copying New Labour, but learning from its mistakes; and not on abandoning Conservative principles, but applying them in new ways to new challenges.

Social Responsibility

Policies without intellectual foundations will not stand the test of time. We have had ten years of short-term initiatives announced to get headlines in the papers. That is why we have been setting out, patiently and consistently, the big idea on which we will build our plan for government. That idea is social responsibility. It is the idea that there is such a thing as society, it is just not the same thing as the state. Social responsibility means that every time we see a problem, we do not just ask what government can do; we ask what people can do, what society can do.

A Clear Choice

The British people will have a clear choice. A choice between two different visions of society. And a choice between the old and the new politics. Gordon Brown’s answer to crime, to education, to everything is a top-down government scheme.  Under Gordon Brown all we will get is ‘he knows best’ politics, as he sits at his desk expecting a grateful nation to wait with bated breath for the latest master-plan to emerge. He will not even commit himself to giving the British people a say over the EU constitution.

People want and need a government that is on their side, that trusts them, that positively wants to put power and control in their hands. That is the big difference between us and Gordon Brown. We get the modern world, he does not. We trust people, he is suspicious of them. We believe in social responsibility, he believes in state control.

Stand up, Speak Up

Right across the range of issues, our policy debate has begun in earnest. We have launched Stand Up, Speak Up – a chance for everyone in this country to get involved in shaping the next Conservative manifesto.