Tuesday 6th October 2009

The Conservative party conference in Manchester is already in full flow, with leader David Cameron due to give his keynote speech later this week.
A year ago I was in support of a Conservative government, but recently I have become very sceptical of the party.
Although many will disagree, I trust David Cameron, I think he's genuine, but his similarities to Tony Blair make the general public very weary of him. He seems to have the right priorities should his party get into power, such as protecting the NHS (not all Tories are nasty and uncaring like Daniel Hannan, see blog entry 14th August) and improving state schools in the poorest areas, he just needs to find the right policies to achieve his vision for Britain.
However, I'm unsure of David Cameron's party as a whole, particularly his Shadow Cabinet. The majority of the Shadow Cabinet are millionaires, yet some still claimed extravagant expenses, such as Chris Grayling and Michael Gove, who were found to have 'flipped' their second homes. It's quite concerning that we could be governed by millionaires who are still greedy enough to claim petty expenses. My local MP Richard Benyon is a wealthy man, but he resisted the temptation to dip his hand into public money for expenses and was one of the MPs not implicated at all in the scandal. If Cameron wants to restore trust to politicians he should think about who he has in his Cabinet if the Tories win the general election. Perhaps getting rid of one or two of these dodgy Shadow ministers and replacing them with honest, respected MPs such as Richard Benyon would send out the right message. Alan Duncan was removed from his post of Shadow Leader of the Commons recently after saying some very stupid things (see blog entry 8th September), but I think Cameron needs to go further than this to restore public trust.
Another concern with this Shadow Cabinet is that they're out of touch with Britain. Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox has said a Tory government would be "sympathetic" for a request for thousands of more troops to be deployed in Afghanistan. Now from what I understand most of us want our brave soldiers out of the war zones as soon as possible. It should be a priority providing the right equipment to the soldiers already out in Afghanistan and Iraq, not sending more to war.
And recently Shadow Home Secretary compared Britain's streets to US television show The Wire, set in Baltimore. I've never seen The Wire, but I'm pretty sure we have a lower crime rate then the murder capital of America. There might be a problem with knife crime, but this comparison is completely over the top suggests how out of touch the Shadow Home Secretary is.
The next General Election is there for the Conservatives to lose and after Shadow Chancellor George Osbourne's speech today they may have just lost the support of a few people. The proposed public spending cuts will not have gone down well with those approaching their pension or public sector workers, as Nick Robinson blogs on the BBC website.
This week's conference is a big chance for the Conservatives to persuade the electorate to vote for them, but so far I'm not convinced.