Cameron: I'd rather have a macaroon

The Cameron conference pitch to voters reflects opportunism. The recession could hardly have come at a more convenient time for the Tories, tossing unfamiliar scenarios and alarming statistics into the public arena. Anxiety is widespread and people look for reassurance.

The Tory argument is as follows: Firstly, they make the case that Big Government has caused a broken society and Britain’s economic problems. But Labour achieved a landslide in ‘97, because Thatcher’s policies had created some rather Big Problems. The decimation of heavy industry: coal, steel, print, engineering and manufacture devastated parts of our region, abruptly ending employment that had brought security and identity for as long as people could remember. Initiatives, such as New Deal, were an important part of rebuilding a battered Labour Market. Sure Start – a different face of Big Government (and one which meets the Tories’ approval) - was developed to address the long-term health and pre-school learning issues for children in poorer neighbourhoods, as well as helping parents take responsibility for their families more effectively.

A different face of Big Government is about driving up health and safety standards. The Herald of Free Enterprise disaster was an infamous example of why government should intervene, but deaths on building sites today sadly remain common.

A second part of Cameron’s message was to argue that public services intrude into family life, as well as cost too much. From a Gateshead perspective, this does not ring true. Tory councils have always stressed the importance of cutting Council Tax, rather than promote support for hard-pressed communities. So rolling back Big Government to target popular services like leisure and sports, breakfast clubs, meals on wheels, adult learning and extended schools for cuts and pay freezes expresses their indifference to the impact of such cuts on families and communities and on jobs, especially where jobs are thin on the ground. To this I must add other proposals from Cameron’s team, such as cutting Child Tax Credits and sickness benefit.

The high level of debt faced by the UK Treasury reflects the size of our financial sector but our national debt does not present future challenges very different from other EU states. The effectiveness of decisions made in response to the collapse of banking is already evident from the modest improvements in house prices and performance in the business and finance sectors. The Tories’ zeal for cuts in the public sector shows how removed from the European mainstream they are today. It further shows a keenness to punish poor and middle-income households in the short-term, presumably in order to hasten tax cuts later on. Without a mechanism to ensure our regional needs are met, the impact of Tory cuts in the North could be worse than elsewhere.

Finally, the need for reassurance is widespread. But it is important to look objectively at the detail, at the small print. Cameron said that it was character, temperament and judgement, not policies and manifesto that really make the difference. If the General Election campaign is really a protracted job interview for the post of Prime Minister, we must be sure that the candidates know the answers to our questions. It’s not enough to make a confident, ambitious impression and perform well on TV. Voters will make decisions on the day as to which party understands our problems because they have the right experience and which will be more on our side.