Member News
George Osborne has announced that a Conservative government would freeze council tax for at least two years.
The shadow chancellor used his speech to the Tory conference on Monday to say that "every council tax bill of every family will be frozen" for two years.
The move would be funded by cutting spending on government consultants and advertising.
Whitehall does not have the power to impose direct council tax freezes, but Osborne said that those who limited spending increases would be offered help.
He pledged that his party would not "walk on by" as people struggled to cope with the rising cost of living.
And he told activists in Birmingham that a Tory government "will help the country plan for recovery".
Britain's financial system was facing the "most profound questions" as a result of the economic downturn, Osborne argued.
He also said the City must take some responsibility for its part in the economic crisis.
"I am not going to blame everything on the bankers alone but nor am I going to excuse them of their responsibility or allow them to think that things can carry on as before," he said.
"I'm not going to do what the Left has done and use the crisis as an excuse to abandon the free market economy that has made our economy prosperous.
"Nor do I pretend that the crisis doesn't raise the most profound questions about our financial system and how we regulate it."
And he insisted that a Tory government was "up to it", claiming that Gordon Brown as chancellor forgot that an economy "built on debt" was not an "economy built to last".
He attacked the "divided" Labour Party, saying it was "more interested in fighting themselves than in fighting for the future of this country".
Responsibility
Setting out a "comprehensive plan for economic responsibility", Osborne called for a "wholly different approach" to Labour's handling of the economy.
He also mocked Gordon Brown's call for an end to what the prime minister last week described as the "age of irresponsibility".
"I am not going to claim that this problem only exists in Britain or that it is all the fault of the current government," he said.
"But nor am I going to let them forget who sat there in the Treasury for 10 years while the regulation failed, the debt soared and no one called time on the age of irresponsibility.
"The age of irresponsibility - who would have thought that the epitaph of the Brown years would be provided by the man himself?
"He says he's the candidate of experience. Well I think we've all had enough of the Gordon Brown experience."
Recovery
On Sunday the Conservatives published a policy document on reconstructing the economy.
Measures in the plan include binding the government to reduce national debt over the economic cycle.
The Tories would also set up an independent 'Office for Budget Responsibility' to "assess the sustainability of the public finances" and audit the nation's debts.
And Osborne told the conference: "What we need is a wholly different approach. It is set out in the comprehensive plan for economic responsibility we publish today.
"It is a plan to end Britain's dependency on debt. We will bring fiscal responsibility to our government.
"And we will bring financial responsibility in our economy. We will make sure that this mess never happens again."
Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd