Copio debajo varias reacciones, pero me quedo con las notas escépticas de Guido y Perry de Havilland. No es prudente fiarse de los políticos, sus discursos y sus promesas, ni inteligente proyectar sobre ellos nuestras esperanzas después de tantas frustraciones acumuladas. Siempre pensamos "esta vez será distinto", pero esa fe en "el cambio" no tiene apenas fundamento.
El editorial del Daily Telegraph:
Time and again, Mr Cameron rejected the big-government approach of the past 12 years and set out the clear, simple principles that will inform a Tory government. To paraphrase, if you put in the effort to bring in a wage, you will be better off. If you save, you will be rewarded. If you start a business, the state will back you. If you raise a family, you will be supported. If you are frightened, you will be protected. If you risk your own safety to stop a crime, the authorities will stand by you. If you fight for your country, you will be honoured. In short, a Conservative government will reward those who take responsibility, and care for those who cannot. With such passages, Mr Cameron finally found the rhetoric to articulate his vision. There was no mention of that clunky construct, the "post-bureaucratic age" – instead, he was intent on ushering in an age of responsibility.
El editorial del Times, más ambivalente:
The speech also had an argument. Mr Cameron repeatedly suggested that “big government” was to blame for Britain’s ills. It was an odd term to use. It is retro and meaningful only to those attending a seminar on Reaganomics. And in addition, the argument is only half-correct.
Mr Cameron is right to suggest that overbearing government and excessive regulation are often incompetent, a waste of money and crowd out useful voluntary activity. In many areas society and the economy would be better if government did less and did it better. It is, however, a serious overstretch to suggest, as Mr Cameron did, that almost all social problems have their roots in the size of government.
Allister Heath en City A.M. hace un balance positivo del discurso pero ve algunas sombras preocupantes en el horizonte:
[O]nly 70 per cent of the structural deficit will be met with spending cuts; the remainder will come from tax hikes. Some will be more destructive than others: a windfall tax on banks is the last thing the City needs right now. Value added tax will increase from 17.5 per cent (once the temporary cut to 15 per cent expires) to at least 20 per cent. But at least Vat is less damaging to the economy’s efficiency than direct tax, which is why it is such a shame that some Tories are wondering whether they should hike capital gains tax from 18 per cent to closer to 40 per cent, aligning it with income tax. This would be disastrous as it would slash returns to investors on their capital, acting as a drag on growth. For the sake of what is left of the economy’s competitiveness, this idea needs to be killed off and fast.
Guido Fawkes, escéptico:
What is a little unconvincing is the idea that in government the Tories will roll back Big Government, policy after policy is statist; the Tories are proposing 17 new quangos, threatening to put up taxes and devoid of privatisation proposals. When the leader of the LibDems is sounding more right-wing on taxes and implementing “savage spending cuts” than the leader of the Tories, you wonder who is really offering real change?
Prime example of the Tory credibility deficit: it was George Osborne who committed the Conservatives to match Labour’s spending plans until 2011, to howls of outrage from many of his supporters – Tim Montgomerie was very vocal that this was a big mistake, John Redwood was diplomatically unimpressed. Now the Tories decry Gordon Brown’s past overspending and his fiscal recklessness in every speech. Do they think we have forgotten that it was they who supported those very same spending plans? They were asked repeatedly at the time what would happen if there were no “proceeds of growth” to share and ducked the question. The Cameroons have bought into the Finkelstein argument – which is entirely political – that it is expensive to be radical, that it is nigh on impossible to dramatically change the course of the ship of state, that across the board tax cuts are politically and economically too difficult. So much so that these aspirations are hardly voiced. If you don’t aim for the stars you won’t even get off the ground in government, the civil service and vested interests will thwart pragmatists every time.
Perry de Havilland, en Samizdata, destacando los vaivenes de Cameron:
Dave Cameron "promises to tear down big government", presumably by increasing the size of government.
I have one question for you, Dave... were you lying in January when you promised to increase government spending from £620bn this year to £645bn next year - rather than the £650bn proposed by Labour... or are you lying now in October when you say you will tear down big government?
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