Honesty, Not Fantasy

My apologies for not being able to update you from this year's Conservative Party Conference before now, but such is the interest in this year's event in Manchester and the accompanying high attendance figures that it has been difficult to find either the time or the facilities to get online before now.

For me the highlight of the Conference so far has been George Osborne's speech on Tuesday where he exposed the gaping chasm that now exists between our party and Labour on the burning issue of fiscal responsibility. I use the term fiscal responsibility and Labour in the same sentence advisedly because they have been strangers to one another since Gordon Brown abandoned Conservative spending plans in 1999 and went mad with the nation's credit card.

Calmly and assuredly, George Osborne set out a number of proposals to begin to deal with the worst debt crisis this country has seen since the last time Labour were in office. As a matter of fact, the current debt crisis we have been led into by Labour is actually worse than the one Margaret Thatcher inherited in 1979, with borrowing estimated to reach £175 billion this year alone. That is a truly shocking figure and one that will be paid for not just by taxpayers today and tomorrow, but by their children, and even their children's children. This cannot continue.

There is an old saying that every Labour government has always run out of money, and I am sad to say that this has once again proven to be the case. Labour always runs out of our money.

The size of the mountain we must climb in order to get our economy back on a sound footing is huge, but it is a task that we the Conservatives will undertake compassionately and fairly. The main theme running through George's speech was that we are all in this together, and he is right. We are united, not just as a party but as a country. Labour got us into this mess, and now only the Conservatives can get us out. We have done it before, and we'll do it again.

The battle now between the Conservatives and Labour is no longer just about Gordon Brown's false dividing line of 'investment versus cuts', nor indeed is it about fiscal responsibility versus profligate spending. To sum it up bluntly, the battle now is between honesty and fantasy. Honesty from the Conservatives about the measures that need to be taken to ensure we bring our country back from the brink, or Labour fantasy where the people of Great Britain continue to be lied to and treated like fools.

The choice is clear, we simply cannot afford another five years of Labour.

I will set out what this means for the people of Rochester and Strood when I return home, but in the meantime let me assure you of this - neither I nor my party will rest in our fight to bring about a fairer, more equitable society for all. Together we can make Britain Great again!

Honesty, Not Fantasy