A List of Priorities for a Conservative Government

 The Conservative Party is likely to lose the next General Election, whenever that may be. Grandiloquent and baseless promises made to woo Conservative Party members will not only be undeliverable, but may also be foolish, and in some cases, insane.

A reset of not necessarily personnel but policy is needed to offer the British people something that they can instinctively recognise as being good. "Levelling Up" was a soundbite of good policy, but three years of the Levelling Up agenda and those in Westminster are still none the wiser as to what it actually entails - never mind towns north of the Humber.

Good Conservative policy will focus on the following things:

1) Making the UK, as Boris pointed out in yesterday's PMQs, the best place to invest in. 

This will require overhauling our stuffy, risk-averse models for investment and transitioning towards a California-style marketplace where individuals feel confident enough to spend their money on cutting edge projects. Individuals are always more prepared to take on risk than organisations, and we shoul recognise that being rich is not a sin, and rather can be a force for good. Without rampant investment, with its associated winners and losers, we can't expect to fund the modernisation that the country clearly needs.

To that end, reducing corporation tax, enacting stricter monopoly laws, and keeping productivity high (scrapping work from home, for instance) should boost competition, employment prospects, and living standards.

2) Committing to Net Zero. 

There is a portion of the UK commentariat who resolutely, if not deny, then belittle and demean the vast majority of experts and voices calling for urgent action on the climate emergency.

You would have to be some sort of first-class prize pillock to be one of those people, who tend not to be stupid but rather blinded or misled by misconceptions over ideological responses to the climate crisis. Most of the loudest voices calling for urgent action tie global decry global warming as the evil child of capitalism. Only a redistribution of wealth (and a serious reduction in living standards and freedoms) will provide an adequate reset, they say.

But this is not true. Manipulating the market, and promoting sensible society voices, will reduce the carbon footprint of the country at no great cost to the taxpayer. Carbon capture, battery storage, clean hydrogen: industries like these that are innovative and science-driven should be subsidised and encouraged. Research grants should be handed out liberally. Profit encourages innovation, and the green energy market promises major profits through government contracts.

In the meantime, fuel duty should be slashed. Environmental protection enforcement should be stricter. A serious discussion about nuclear energy and fracking should be had. There is much to be done that doesn't involve returning to our hunter-gatherer states, as those who bizarrely strap themselves to buildings advocate. 

Net Zero is possible, but it will take those with both ideas and capital to do it; let's stop discussing ludicrous ideas about insulating 60 million homes.

3) Reform education. 

From top to bottom education needs to change. The academic are not pushed hard enough intellectually; the able are not encouraged to develop useful skills. Geographical disparities in educational attainment are too great. Private education is an exercise in impeding incompetence with confidence. University is a notable and widely-accepted scam. Standards are lessening, but grades are improving. Generally speaking, and besides anomalies, the education system is awful.

The Left's solution to the problem is paradoxical. Whilst making note, and emphasising, that each individual is different, with different skills and abilities and strengths, they propose a system with no distinguishing factors: a universal education. Clearly this is wrong.

The solution is a system whereby children are streamlined in a direction that plays to their strengths. Whilst some claim that this would be unfair, leaving some with a broader, and perhaps more highly socially valued, education than others, I ask what could be more fair than providing every child with the opportunity for a decent and perenially employable living? 

I grant that the grammar school system of old was highly demoralising, resulting in an almost caste system made up of those who passed the 11+ and those who did not. A way around this would be to make the system incredibly fluid, with the opportunity, annually, of transferring school up until the age of 16, on the condition of passing a certain exam. And clearly humanity and civilisation has moved on somewhat since the 1970s. The alternative is not to teach those who are not pursuing a distinctly academic schooling archaic trades like craftwork. That is patronising. Rather, as they do in the Far East, a curriculum based around digital skills, like coding, is far more important - debatedly even more so than Latin and Greek.

Private schools should make a strong case for continued charity status, but even then this may not be enough. The strongest card that the oldest public schools have to play is that through mere existance they uphold the traditions and values of the kingdom, which serve those who go on into public service well to have been taught. As it currently stands however, the richest, many of whom come from oversees, subsidise the attendance of the deserving. Is this a comfortable situation for these schools to find themselves in, let alone the pupils themselves?

It is a parent's right to spend money on their child's education. Increasingly, though, the role of the private school is being corrupted from what it was first intended to provide; that is, a network of intelligent pupils granted with the knowledge, and, more importantly, the skills required for effective public service. Grammar schools were the finest alternative to this system, and an effective reformation would combine the promotion of ability as exemplified in the grammar school system with the patriotic spirit and traditional character that is offered by the private sector. In other words, private schools must quickly raise their academic, artistic, and athletic standards through a system of examination and scholarship, so that they can become a breeding ground of both ideas and, in the most complimentary way possible, a competent elite.

Meanwhile universities must change. There should be less of them, and they should demand high academic achievement. There must be a concrete requirement of at least a C in both Maths and English to attend. Unconditional offers must be made illegal. The university must, in some way, be prevented from building state-of-the-art facilities such as living quarters and certain lecture halls, sports facilities, and Union buildings, as an excuse for charging exorbitant fees. Students do not care about this, nor have they ever cared about this. Tutors and lecturers should attempt to form friendships with their students wherever possible, or, at least, there should be some level of personality injected into scholarship and academia. Personality inspires, not content.

An alternative to university must be made attractive. Government must work with MNCs and large-scale employers to convince them that apprenticeships are worth their while - which, they are.

4) Reform the way we treat healthcare. 

Much has been made of the 44 percent of day-to-day spending the NHS currently occupies, but rarely do we hear a solution. Increasing NHS funding remains a vote winner. But clearly we cannot continue on this path. Evidently, if a state offers a free consultation with an expert, an expert shall be consulted at every available opportunity. 

NHS 111 was a solution to a growing problem, which was people using the service when the vaguest bit of medical knowledge would suffice. In that sense, communities can do more to encourage healthy living, disperse knowledge of healthcare, and, in essence, promote common sense. Drinking, smoking, and unhealthy eating are not actually problems if the requisite steps are taken, like, obviously, exercise. 

Healthcare should, in many cases, be a last resort, not a first port of call. I don't begrudge a system of universal healthcare - we pay tax after all - but I do begrudge one that comes at the expense of opportunity. We should merit a reduction in NHS spending, and if that means privatising some sectors without hindering operation, so be it.

5) Infrastructure Projects

Infrastructure falls into two categories: the glamorous and the important. Making our motorways wider and faster falls into the important category. HS2 and HS3 fall into the glamorous category. All of this will benefit the country. 

A reliance on railways which are in essence Victorian is a bit of a joke for a modern economy, and journey times between large cities across relatively short distances leave commuters questioning where their money is really going to. In this respect, clamping down on Unions that are ideologically opposed to modernisation will be important. 

6) Clamp down on woke nonsense

The Conservative party has never cared about identitarian policies, and not should it now. A stricter line, not of the traditionally liberal school, should be taken at the dispatch box. That means some kind of action against schemes such as Stonewall, which essentially attempts to indoctrinate radical idiocy. 

Gladly this will also help businesses and councils, as well as the Civil Service, who waste ridiculous amounts of money on positions such as Diversity and Inclusion Officers. I am not totally sure what the day to day work of these positions is, and I'm also not totally sure they do either. Essentially, they make offices more difficult and threatening places to work, and they don't contribute positively to the kind of meritocracy that we would all like to live in.