Tuesday 13 April 2010

UKIP pitches to hearts of Tory blogosphere

For some reason, the UKIP manifesto has not had such a high profile today.

Key policies include:

* Leave the EU and negotiate a Swiss-style trade agreement.

* Offer a royal commission to "allow scientists to reach a conclusion about the facts and economic implications of global warming", adding that Ukip is "sceptical" about man-made global warming claims.

* A new flat tax at 31 per cent, including income tax and employers' NI, with the income tax threshold at £11,500.

* Large public spending cuts to reduce public sector to size it was in 1997.

* Increase defence spending by 40% (1% of GDP).

* Immediate five year freeze on immigration for permanent settlement, though allow immigration up to 50,000 a year after this.

* Pledge to "scrap political correctness in public affairs"

* Encourage new grammar schools, with selection through a new 'comprehensive test' at age 11 which would somehow ensure 'no return to the stigma of failing 11+'

At least three-quarters of those key pledges strike me as being music to the ears of Tory Bear, Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome and the other leading Tory bloggers.

The right's leading online voices are considerably more Eurosceptic and climate sceptic than the Tory party leadership.

Leaving aside their commitment to electing a Tory government, it would be interesting to know how much they disagree with UKIP's policy pledges, though no doubt the political strategy may be to press for a shift in that direction for the Conservative Party from within.

4 comments:

laurence said...

It's completely standard for UKIP not to be given proper media space - most of the media are controlled by New Labour or Tory interests, so they are trying their dammnedest not to let the UKIP message get through, as usual!

Sunder Katwala said...

Personally, though, I think one might have advised UKIP to go up against the liberal democrats rather than the Tories on the timing.

Letters From A Tory said...

Fine then, here goes:

* Leave the EU and negotiate a Swiss-style trade agreement - happy with that.

* Offer a royal commission to "allow scientists to reach a conclusion about the facts and economic implications of global warming", adding that Ukip is "sceptical" about man-made global warming claims - one wonders whether a sceptical party like UKIP could be trusted to choose the scientists...

* A new flat tax at 31 per cent, including income tax and employers' NI, with the income tax threshold at £11,500 - flat taxes are a stupid idea, although absorbing NI into income tax is not.

* Large public spending cuts to reduce public sector to size it was in 1997 - idiocy. GDP has grown considerably since 1997 and the public sector should have grown too, even if it is at a slower rate than GDP.

* Increase defence spending by 40% (1% of GDP) - surely our defence spending should be dropping in the long term if/when we leave Iraq and Afghanistan?...

* Immediate five year freeze on immigration for permanent settlement, though allow immigration up to 50,000 a year after this - *yawn*

* Pledge to "scrap political correctness in public affairs" - how are they going to do that?!

* Encourage new grammar schools, with selection through a new 'comprehensive test' at age 11 which would somehow ensure 'no return to the stigma of failing 11+' - no more grammar schools please, they are a sign of educational failure, not success.

Sunder Katwala said...

LFAT,

Thanks! You do reveal yourself to be rather a centrist in Tory/right-of-centre blogosphere terms, albeit including getting out of the EU and because you are agnostic on climate, rather than 'sceptical' in the non-sceptical 'its all a fraud' sense.

From Tory Bear tweeting earlier, I know he opposes the immigration cap, but he seems seems broadly on board with the rest, including the grammars.