Some Veritas founding principles are re-born!

Rather than blaming the lack of an economic slump on the Tory misfortunes as Michael Howard is quoted as doing in today's Daily Telegraph, a small group of Conservative MPs (with a contribution from the straight thinking MEP Roger Helmer) have instead prepared a series of policy options which seek to remedy some of the major problems confronting Britain. These may be read in PDF format by clicking on the title of the pamphlet: Being Conservative: A cornerstone of policies to revive Britain

Further details of the Cornerstone Group may be found from this link to their homepage.

A summary of some of the policy suggestions taken from that blog is as follows:

Specific policy ideas in the pamphlet include:

> Flat tax based on a single rate of 22 per cent, a personal allowance of £10,000 and an overall tax cut of £40 billion, which would take millions of low-paid workers and pensioners out of tax altogether.
> Reducing the size and reach of the state.
> Proclaiming the supremacy of Parliament and renegotiating British membership of the EU.
> Repeal of the Human Rights Act and withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights
> Returning agriculture, fishing and the environment to national control.
> Education vouchers to give parents and pupils a real choice of schools and to lever up standards through competition.
> Restructuring the NHS so that hospitals are no longer owned and run by the state.
> Tax breaks for marriage to strengthen the traditional two-parent family and to remove perverse financial incentives for family breakdown.
> Directly elected sheriffs with the power to appoint and dismiss chief constables
> Measures to curb the growing tendency of senior judges to seek to make the law rather than just apply it.
> A new Tory emphasis on green issues.