Flying in the Face of Reality Dept.A Choice of Two Futures25 Pledges for the Nation (which might be honoured)The Enterprise Curse of EuropeTAX AND SPENDING. Keep tight control of public spending priorities, aiming for our target of a 20p basic rate of income tax over the next parliament, by means of a whole range of sneaky new indirect taxes. Money comes first with the Conservatories. PRICES AND MORTGAGES. Stick to the gradgrind policies which have delivered the lowest inflation levels and mortgage rates for a generation despite gross damage to the fabric of society, meeting our inflation target of 2.5% or less. Oh yes, we were prepared to put them up to 15% after Black Wednesday, but happily that's been forgotten about. JOBS. Promote low paid and insecure jobs by keeping Britain out of the European Social Chapter; build on our massaged records of falling unemployment; and drive the long term unemployed back to work - requiring those on benefit for some time to undertake work experience on a useless (but profitable for the private agency which will administer it) community project. ENTERPRISE. Help the rich get richer by keeping Britain the lowest tax major economy in Europe, pursuing Britain's global trade opportunities for defence sales and curbing unnecessary regulations, such as those affecting animal foodstuffs. SMALL BUSINESS. Reform business rates to help small businesses. We had to say this yet again - we can't really be bothered doing anything about it at all though! THE FUTURE. Keep Britain ahead in the American technology of the future, encouraging new entertainment and information services, and misusing the Millennium Lottery Fund to give people access to new computers and information links in schools, libraries, and those few other public places that are left after eighteen years of Conservatory rule.
Opportunity and Ownership for Wealthy Individuals and FamiliesHELP FOR FAMILIES. Give priority to reducing tax bills for rich families looking after dependent children or relatives by allowing one partner's unused personal allowance to be transferred to a working spouse where they have these responsibilities. That'll open up a few more tax loopholes for our friends. If you don't pay tax, hard luck!HELP FOR CARERS. Help family members with heavy responsibilities caring for a relative to take a much needed one day per year break through a new Respite Care and Compulsory Euthanasia Programme. We still won't stop cutting state provision for caring though. After all, the people being cared for are much better off being dead. OWNERSHIP. Encourage schemes that help employees build a minority shareholding in the company they work for, alongside tax benefits for other savings schemes which will be subject to unattainable minimum investment levels. PENSIONS. Transform pensions by forcing all young people entering the workforce to take out a private personal pension fund paid for by a rebate on their national insurance contributions, while maintaining a state pension guarantee. If you believe that, you'll believe anything. CARE IN OLD AGE. Make it easier for people to afford the cost of care in old age without giving up their house and savings, thus only partially correcting a situation which we brought about in the first place. SCHOOL STANDARDS. Guarantee school standards by intervening directly to raise standards where schools or local education authorities are letting children down through lack of funds, imposed by our capping limits. SCHOOL CHOICE. Widen choice and diversity in schools, with more freedom for schools to develop their own character, more specialist schools, and a grammar school in every town where parents want that choice, without regard to the practicalities. We will also maintain our nursery voucher scheme offering a choice of places for parents of all 4 year olds. Put your mum or dad into a creche today!
Destroying World Class Health and Public ServicesNHS FUNDING PLEDGE. Continue, year by year, to increase the real resources committed to the NHS bureaucracy, so NHS spending will continue to share in a growing economy, and we benefit from more Conservatory-voting bureaucrats too!FAMILY DOCTORS. Ensure all family doctors provide a wider range of inconsequential bureaucratic services in their surgeries and in practice-based cottage hospitals (practice makes perfect) - offering faster and more local treatment if you're prepared to take the risk. CITIZEN'S CHARTER. Continue to lower the standards and value for money of Britain's public services, giving those who use them more disinformation and, where possible, an illusion of wider choice. We will not be introducing charter schemes for privatised services - being privately owned they can do no wrong. Right? ESSENTIAL SERVICES. Introduce measures to protect the public against strikes that cause excessive disruption to essential services. We won't be stopping their managements from indulging in short-termism or awarding themselves fat salaries or share options. How else would we get their donations?
An Unsafe and Uncivil SocietyPUBLIC SAFETY. Support local police schemes to crack down on petty crime, which has grown thanks to our policies. We will not be encouraging them to crack down on major crime for fear that we might lose a useful source of donations. We will continue our funding for the installation of TV security cameras in town centres and public places that want them throughout the next parliament, but that's about all. Big brother is watching you!JUVENILE CRIME. Give the courts power to impose speedy sanctions on all youngsters, including an element of reparation to the victim; and continue our war against drugs, which we've been fighting very ineffectually. We mustn't offend our donors you know! PERSISTENT CRIMINALS. Ensure persistent house burglars and dealers in hard drugs who fail to make donations to the Conservatory Party receive mandatory minimum prison sentences.
A Mean-spirited, Disunited and Unhappy NationQUALITY OF LIFE. Continue the renaissance and standardisation of our towns and cities, in particular harnessing private capital to regenerate the worst public housing estates at grear profit to themselves; continue to protect our English countryside and partisan heritage (our much vaunted ha-ha digging project is winning wide acclaim), and use the National Lottery to help promote English sports, arts and culture.THE ENVIRONMENT. Maintain our Gummer-driven international leadership role in protecting the environment, and continue improving air and water quality at home (if you don't have an air conditioner or can't afford water - hard luck!) alongside effective conservation of our wildlife, through our "Kill a Grouse for your Spouse" project. THE NATION. Maintain the disunity of the United Kingdom and preserve the instability of the Nation through an evolutionary - rather than revolutionary - approach to constitutional change (i.e do nothing). Scotland will not get devolution under the Conservatories - the colony produces far too much oil revenue for that - so there! EUROPE. Seek a partnership of nation states in Europe with us as the little boy who owns the football, and not allow Britain to be part of a federal European state. Give up our powers over you? No way! THE POUND. Guarantee that Britain will not join a single currency in the
next parliament unless the British people give their express approval in a
referendum. (This last is to wrong-foot Sir James Goldsmith's lot) After all,
currency dealing is very profitable! Most currency dealers support the
Conservatory Party, and we need their donations. Money comes first
and last with the Conservatories. Q.E.D.
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