What's Wrong with the Tories?
111 imcram
-PIN% Eira
[L,
From: G. A. Picot, Mrs Nik Birch Reynardson, Tony Lynes, Elizabeth Wren, Ralph Roney, Edward Samson, Martin Seymour-Smith, Edward A. A rtnstrong, W. H. Jones. C. W. S. Hartley. Oliver Mason, Rev. F. N. Hale, Aryeh H. Samuel, G. E. Browne, Harvey R. Cole, and T. Rook.
SIR.—`What's Wrong with the Tories?' (February 3). Perhaps this is the wrong question. The 1964 and 1966 elections purported to be about economic growth, the Labour party saying this could be achieved by planning, the Tories saying it could be achieved by competition, if you will forgive the simplifica- tions. We see now that there has been no growth in two and a half years of socialist planning and we wonder why people are not annoyed with the Government. Perhaps it is because they do not want growth anyway; they want something else: social justice, security, equality, and they reckon they are more likely to get this under a so-called planned economy whether it grows or not than under a com- petitive economy whether that one grows or not. If this is so, then the argument politicians have been conducting has been a private one; the public in their heart of hearts have not been listening. Opinion will only change when they find their socially just, secure and equal society has disadvan- tages, namely that we become less prosperous than the rest of Europe and eventually less prosperous than we were before.
If this is so, Tories need to become the party of prosperity and need to show that rising prosperity has advantages that outweigh 'social justice.' To some extent prosperity and social justice are oppo- sites: the one is helped by low taxation, the other needs high taxation.
Previous page
