It will be strengthened by sticking to its austerity measures despite the struggling economy, Chancellor George Osborne told his party’s Manchester conference.
The one tent-pole measure in his speech was a hastily cobbled together innovation – an Exchequer-backed “credit easing” scheme targeted at small businesses – that is as yet so novel the detail has not been worked out and may not be until next month’s November 29 pre-Budget statement.
Mr Osborne and his advisors made much of the pre-conference decision by credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s to endorse Britain’s triple-A rating, something of note only because of Mr Osborne’s own pre-election insistence on likening Britain’s economy to that of Greece.
Mr Osborne resisted calls to kick-start the with tax cuts or spending on infrastructure or the housing industry saying that he would not risk the country’s precious AAA credit rating – which enables it to borrow at cheap rates on the bond markets – for the sake of “a few billion pounds more. We are in a debt crisis, it is not like a normal recovery. You can’t borrow your way out of debt”, he insisted.
In an attempt to please his audience he announced some curtailments on workers’ rights, saying he would make it easier to fire employees and that anyone seeking to claim unfair dismissal would have to pay upfront costs of £250 to apply and £1,000 if actually granted a hearing, with higher charges if damages in excess of £30,000 are being sought.
Sticking to the same message, Prime Minister David Cameron justified the Government’s opposition to stimulus
by saying that it is already spending a trillion pounds.
Mr Osborne’s keynote speech – the economy was the biggest single issue at the conference despite crowd pleasing noises on immigration and planning – was welcomed by the influential chairman of the Treasury Select Committee Andrew Tyrie who had arrived at the conference saying the Government’s growth strategy was neither coherent nor consistent. He also dismissed the government Big Society and Green agendas as irrelevant or contradictory to a growth strategy.
But Mr Tyrie’s supportive remarks were noted after he conspicuously received a “briefing”, or “talking to”, from David Cameron’s most trusted Number 10 apparatchik and “radical thinker” Steve Hilton.
“You can see some consistency in this speech and I think it will be widely welcomed not only by the party but by people across the country, who also need a growth strategy to help them move forward,” said Mr Tyrie after the brief chat. He strongly denied being “nobbled”.
