Speaking at the launch of the Welsh Conservatives' General Election manifesto in Prestatyn, Conservative Party leader David Cameron said: “It’s great to be here in Wales. This party has a long and proud history in this country - Wyn Roberts, Kenneth Baker, Geoffrey Howe, Michael Heseltine, Michael Howard. All born here, all Conservative, all have given so much of their lives to public service.
And today, that flame of Welsh Conservatism is carried forward by a new generation, with our brilliant MPs – David Davies, Stephen Crabb and David Jones and let’s not forget Cheryl Gillan and Nick Bourne. No one has done more than these two to get this party back in the heart of Welsh politics, even helping us do something no one ever believed we could – topping the poll in Wales, like we did in last year’s European elections.
There’s another election coming up, it’s a bit bigger. We’re less than three weeks away from the most important general election for a generation. Voters want some boldness – some courage. Some hope of real change. They’re longing to hear something positive, something specific, something that will actually make a difference to their lives.
That’s what this manifesto is all about. It is not just specific and practical and fully-costed. It is unremittingly ambitious and unashamedly positive about what we can achieve if we come together – and work together – as a country. It’s a vision of a great national mobilisation, the weight of millions of people pushing in the direction of change.
We want everyone to get involved. We need everyone to get involved. That’s why we have called it an invitation to join the government of Britain.
It’s an invitation that goes out to everyone in Wales who wants to make this country a better place.
It’s an invitation to every young woman or man with a business idea: we'll give you the power to start up and take people on, to do well for yourself and help get the economy moving too.
It’s an invitation to charities and social enterprises and community groups: we'll give you the power to get involved in running public services and help solve our social problems.
It’s an invitation to every taxpayer: we’ll give you the power to scrutinise what government spends and how it spends it so there is no more hiding place for waste and inefficiency. Yes, it is an invitation to the whole nation: we'll give you the power, so you can take control.
And let me tell you why this is so important – so revolutionary. For years, decades, politicians have been treating the public like mugs, pretending that we have all the answers. Just give us some power we say, let us pass a few more laws, issue a few more regulations, spend a bit more of your money – and it will all get miraculously better. But change doesn’t work like that.
If it did, we wouldn’t need an election because we’d be living in utopia by now. If this whole leave-it-all-to-government approach had all the answers, Wales wouldn’t have been left so far behind, with the highest rates of unemployment and child poverty of any country in the UK. No. The idea that change comes from government alone is a lie. A big lie.
Real change only happens when millions of people are fired up to play their part in national renewal when we realise we’re all in this together and all push – together – in the same direction.
We’re only going to crack crime when the country comes together, when shopkeepers stop selling alcohol to kids, when we all bring up our children properly, when we restore discipline to our schools.
We’re only going to make poverty history when the country comes together, when more people give their time to charities working in our most deprived communities, when private companies get people trained and ready for work, when social enterprises help get addicts get off drugs.
We are going to change the way this country is run to empower people to come together and solve problems together.
Not government on its own. Not individuals on their own. But we, the people, together – coming together, working together, achieving together, making this country better, together.
And let me tell you why we’re ready to make these changes to our country. It’s because we had the determination to change our party. Let’s be honest. The Conservative party used to be too narrow in its thinking, too limited, too unrepresentative. This manifesto shows how much the modern Conservative party has changed.
We’re the party of the NHS, the party with the most ambitious green policies, the party with the passion and the plans to fight poverty.
Of course, Labour are trying to say we’re the same old Tory party. They’re even going round telling old people that we’re going to cut a lot of the benefits they get today, like the Winter Fuel Allowance.
These are just the desperate lies of a last-ditch government. Let me be very clear about their lies. We will keep the Winter Fuel Allowance and the pension credit, and we will keep free bus passes for pensioners and we’ll keep free TV licences too. This is a modern Conservative party, back on the centre-ground of British politics, speaking on the issues people care about, standing up for everyone in our society.
I defy anyone to look at our plans and say they’re not radical. I challenge anyone to call this manifesto timid.
This little book is a grenade lobbed right at the heart of the out-of-date, out-moded, old-fashioned notion that big government knows best. It’s going to explode the established way of doing things. In every area we will blast away the old belief that the elites should hold all the power and make all the decisions.
It’s your community, they’re your public services, and you should have control – so we need decentralisation - directly elected police chiefs, an army of community organisers, setting social enterprises and charities free, public sector co-operatives.
And let’s go further. Let’s give people the chance to make change happen through local referendums. Let’s give neighbourhoods the right to run parks and public places. Let’s give local councils the freedom to do what they think is right for their area.
It’s your money and you should know what is being done with it - so let’s have transparency. It’s your life that’s affected by political decisions and the people who make those decisions should answer to you - so we need accountability.
Giving people the right to fire their MP. Cutting the number of quangos. The plans in these pages have the potential to be era-changing, to end the age of state power and bring in a new age of people power.
I promise you: if we achieve even half of our ambitions, it will be the biggest change in how the country is run for more than a generation.
But the bigger the case for change, the louder the chorus of critics will be.
So with plans of this scope and scale and ambition there will always be the cynics, the naysayers, the ones who say ‘we shouldn’t change the system, let’s stick with what we’ve got.’ But that is the argument of the incumbent down the ages.
They don’t want us to change the system because they are the system. They helped create it. They’ve entrenched it. They’re the ones who have controlled so much, centralised so much, built up the edifice of big government with every top-down target and top-down initiative.
Labour can’t say ‘tear down the walls of this system’ because they are the bricks and they are the mortar. So remember, when Labour say don’t risk change what they’re really saying is stick with the status quo. And as Ronald Reagan once said: “status quo is Latin for the mess we’re in”.
But as well as those who say we shouldn’t follow this vision of people power there are those who say we can’t. Some say we can’t afford to make changes like these. We say with so little money and so much failure, we can't afford not to. The big question in British politics today is "how do we make things better without just spending money?" and our big idea helps answer that question.
It’s when communities can determine their own destiny that we will solve the social problems that cause public spending to rise in the first place. It’s when public sector workers have the power to follow their professionalism that they’ll deliver more for less. It’s when people have the power to see what government spends that we will cut government waste.
And as we make the case for a whole new system – where people are in power, not politicians, where we get rid of big government and bring in the Big Society, let’s always remember who we’re doing this for.
We’re doing it for the businessmen and women I met recently in Cardiff, the police officer like the one I went on the beat with in Welshpool, the great social enterprises like the one I visited at Amelia Trust Farm in Glamorgan, mums like Julie from Llandudno who was in our Party election broadcast. For everyone in this country who just wants to do the right thing, do their job, make a difference, play their part and make a better future for Wales.
So for the sake of these people, and the millions more like them, let’s be ambitious, let’s be optimistic, let’s go for it. No more business as usual. No more same old-same old. If we win this election, we go in to government to change the whole system of government. To do things like they’ve never been done before. To give you control over your life.
As one of the most famous Welshmen, Aneurin Bevan, famously said: ‘the purpose of getting power is to be able to give it away’.
So in three weeks time, the people of Wales have a real choice – a big choice. Stick with Labour - and you’re sticking with the old system.
Choose the Liberal Democrats or Plaid Cymru – and you’re choosing people who’ll never win and can never change things. Or vote Conservative – and vote for a whole new system. People power not state power. Big Society not big government.
Together we can get rid of our debts, get our economy moving, mend our broken society – even make politics work better. Together, we can do anything.
So today, we’re inviting you to join us, to help form a new kind of government for Britain.”