The British people want hope. Seven years ago they elected a New Labour government in the belief that it would deliver better public services without driving up taxes. Today we know we have been let down. Sixty tax rises into this Labour government, and still we are waiting for the extra hospital beds, the higher schools standards, the safer streets that people hoped would come from a change of management.
Today there is a great Conservative opportunity. The party which transformed the economy in the 1980s, making the relative economic success of the last twelve years possible, is ready to transform public services. In my new book, Singing the Blues, I set out just how we can offer that hope to an electorate cynical of politicians after so many broken promises from all parties in the last decade.
Twenty five years ago a bruised and battered Britain needed strong remedies. Unions had to be given back to their members, against the strongly expressed wishes of the Trade Union bosses. Public industries had to be given and sold back to their employees and customers, after years of letting them down. Privatisation turned loss making businesses into profitable companies. It turned industries reducing their workforces into expanding employers. It changed unhappy customers faced with nothing but lack of service or bad service into customers with choice and power in the market place.
Now we need to offer the same vision of improvement in the remaining areas where the state holds sway. The public monopoly of health care free at the point of use, and of education free at the school door, is not meeting the needs of today's more sophisticated consumers. The gap between what we can expect from the private holiday and hotel industry on the one hand and from the local District General hospital on the other is too great. Why in the one do we have ensuites, clean rooms and choice of food, and in the other mixed shared wards, high infection rates and a take or leave it menu? The gap between the local comprehensive and the best Independent schools is still too large - the answer is not to damage the best, but improve the worst. Conservative ideas of private capital, consumer choice, and greater freedom for charities, companies and others to supply the free health and schools markets are needed to get things right. Today we can offer a vision of choice and higher quality in the crucial public service areas, without threatening charges for those who cannot or do not want to pay other than through their taxes.
To do this we need to win the next election. In "Singing the blues" I look at what went wrong. I explain why the Conservatives have been in the electoral wilderness ever since the full damage caused by the bad decision in 1989 to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism became clear to electors when we were thrown out of it. Ironically the Conservatives were punished once they had sorted the problem out by pursuing a sensible domestic economic strategy rather than at the time of the mistake in the 1992 election.
Sensibly the Labour government which took over has kept out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism and its successor, the single currency, even though they were strong advocates of the ERM in Opposition, and even though they support the single currency in principle.
Rarely has one decision made so much difference, and rarely in politics do the consequences of one decision last so long. It was that decision which hitched our fortunes to Germany's in a way guaranteed to destroy jobs, undermine businesses and slash house values. There wasn't a family in the land without a scar from the ERM.
At the time of Margaret Thatcher's departure and again on the defeat of John Major Labour offered the explanation that their hostility to Europe was an important part of the reason for their going. The contrary is true: it was their enthusiasm for a half baked and dangerous EU project which brought the house down around them.
It was the only time the Conservatives in power followed an economic policy Labour and the Lib Dems agreed with, and the only time when the policy chosen did not work. It had ‘made in the EU’ firmly stamped on it. Many at the top of the EU probably enjoy privately the irony that when the Conservative party was demonstrably too pro European it became so damaged by this approach that the only electable Eurosceptic party in the UK was no longer a winning force in UK elections.
The questions which matters for the majority Eurosceptic opinion in Britain is when can a sensible Eurosceptic party win a majority at Westminster? For fourteen long years we have experienced rule by successive governments that have been far friendlier to the EU than the public would like or think acceptable. The Conservative party has learnt from this experience. It is now committed to oppose the Euro in principle, oppose the Constitution in principle, and get powers back following the inevitable renegotiation of our relationship that rejection of the constitution will bring. How much longer does it have to spend in the wilderness as penance for the grievous mistake in 1989-92?
Understanding the nature of that mistake is crucial to getting over the electoral hurdle it poses. Conservatives have learnt from that misjudgement and will never commit again. All Conservatives in senior positions now accept that the UK needs its own economic policy, geared to UK circumstances. Sub contracting it to the German Central Bank as we did, or to the European Central Bank, as Labour and the Lib Dems would like to, is a recipe for disaster. It means the wrong interest rates for the UK, and could mean very high rates again which did so much damage in the early 1990s.
"Singing the Blues" explains how all these things happened, and shows just how much change there has been in the Conservatives approach to the EU and economic policy since the sorry tale of the ERM. I set out a range of policies designed to bring democracy back to the UK through renegotiation in Brussels, and abolition of much of the apparatus of the quango state here at home.
It took Labour eighteen years to overcome the winter of discontent and the bitter memories of unmanageable trade unions and rip roaring inflation. They mastered it only when they had learnt enough from their mistakes, coming to see that the economy would only work with Conservative spending plans and lower taxes. The Conservatives are now fifteen years on from the original mistake and twelve years on from it becoming obvious to the electors. They have also grasped the crucial lessons - do not let the EU run the economy, and aim for a low interest rate low tax policy which allows the economy scope to function and breathe.
It is important if we wish to save a democracy in the UK that the Conservatives are now seen as an electable force. All those genuine Eurosceptics who think the answer is to vote UKIP or some other fringe party must come to see that will only delay the day when we have a Eurosceptic majority in Westminster to reflect the mood of the nation. Only when we have a majority at Westminster can we even begin the task of renegotiating, to unravel the many layers of bad government and overregulation heaped on us by Brussels.
John Redwood's Singing the Blues: The Once and Future Conservatives is published by Politico's Publishing at £18.99 hardback.
