It’s not about where Cameron is from, it’s about where he would take Britain

By Douglas Alexander MP

After four years of David Cameron’s leadership, the smile is beginning to wear a little thin.

It’s a measure of how public opinion has changed towards Cameron’s Conservatives that when he first said “we’re all in this together” at the 2005 Conservative leadership contest conference, the line was met with applause and it seemed possible that he could be genuine. Four years on, when George Osborne said the same thing at this year’s party conference, the line lacked credibility.

After four years, it is now clear that the core beliefs of the Conservative Party remain unchanged.

In his bid for the leadership, Cameron reached out to “the family trying to keep their heads above water to provide for their kids”. Today, Cameron’s Conservatives are revealed to be committed to cutting child tax credits for families where the parents earn £16,000 each.

In 2005, he directed his speech “to the mum who’s thinking, ‘How will I pay for Christmas?'”, saying “Yes, we want to leave more money in your pocket”. But in 2009, he is now committed to taking the Child Trust Fund away from families on incomes over £16,040.

As he spoke without notes, he pledged to help “the new parent who worries about the air her kids will breathe”. But today, that struggling lone parent would get nothing from the £5 billion Cameron would spend on a married tax allowance – a pledge that gives 13 times more to those on the top incomes than those at the bottom.

So too his warm words about the environment have proved to be just that. This week we read that his green adviser has been more concerned by offshore accounts than onshore wind farms and keener to limit tax liabilities than limit carbon emissions. And meantime his European allies, not to mention some Tory grandees, continue to deny the reality of climate change.

Today, when the Conservatives say “we’re all in this together”, it is hard not to believe they’re just talking about the powerful and the privileged.

For the hard working majority, Cameron promises a future in which you are made to work longer, with tax credits removed, and rights to public services scrapped – like the guarantee to see a cancer specialist if you need to within 2 weeks.

In a Cameron Britain, the benefit goes to the few. Osborne’s inheritance tax pledge would give nothing to families with estates worth less than £650,000 – but over half a million pounds to each of those whose fortune exceeds two million.

This is about fairness, it’s not about where Cameron is from. It’s about where, if he had the chance, he would take Britain.

What Cameron promised in 2005 was change – but the change he now offers is the wrong kind of change. It’s the kind of change that most families can’t afford. His more recent attack on ‘big government’ and his ‘age of austerity’ narrative reveal the long held ideological preference not just for public spending reduction but for public service reduction. His plan to let the recession take its course risks a decade of low economic growth and austerity.

Instead, the right kind of change for Britain is to go for growth, for new and sustainable low carbon jobs and to protect frontline public services. By going for growth we can cut the deficit and build the new economy of the future. That is change for Britain’s hard working majority.

After four years as leader the Conservative Party’s branding has certainly changed, but not its beliefs. Who will believe this man, when he claims he will change his country, when four years on, he hasn’t even changed his party?