Cameron's Conservatives

Lucy & John

“If David Cameron had been in power I wouldn’t have had this year’s £60 cash boost and the Tories are even threatening to do away with my free TV license and free bus pass.”

The Government’s Pre-Budget Report 2008 announced that all pensioners would receive a £60 cash boost on top of the traditional £10 Christmas bonus. This was paid out to pensioners between January and March this year.

The Conservatives opposed the Government’s decision to target investment in the Pre-Budget Report and thereby set themselves against the extra measures, like the £60 boost, as the quotations below illustrate.

“I mean to be fair though for the last couple of years I have been saying don’t cut VAT, don’t have a fiscal stimulus, we’ve got to focus on the debt, we can’t afford all this spending and all this borrowing.”
David Cameron, speaking on ITV’s “This Morning” on 24 April 2009

“But should we embark on an immediate and large-scale exercise in additional borrowing - adding permanently to our national debt? My answer is that we should not.”
David Cameron, speaking at the St Stephen’s Club in Westminster on 18 November 2008

David Cameron has also argued for going further – cutting targeted investment in the middle of a recession - as illustrated in the quotations below.

“Controlling public spending and delivering more for less must start right now.”
David Cameron, speaking to the Conservative Party Spring Forum in Cheltenham on 26 April 2009

“We’ve made it clear that a Conservative government would spend less than Labour.”
David Cameron, speaking to the Conservative Party Spring Forum in Cheltenham on 26 April 2009

David Cameron does not want to come clean on exactly what he is thinking about spending less on.  But when his Shadow Business Secretary was asked whether the Tories would retain existing support to pensioners including free bus travel for the over 60s and free TV licences over 75s, he argued that cuts to these entitlements “ought to be looked at”. It is clear that the free TV licence and the free bus travel are not exempt from the threat of Conservative cuts.

Andrew Marr:     What about the very general principles like, for instance, the so-called middle class welfare state? David Davis has focused quite a lot on you know what well off pensioners get in terms of TV licences and free public transport and so on. I mean surely at least some of those basic principles ought to be up for discussion?
Ken Clarke:     Well at this stage what I would say is they ought to be looked at, but they're not up for discussion and wild debate and then some decision.
Andrew Marr interviewing Ken Clarke on the BBC’s AM Show on 03 May 2009