It is the stuff of nightmares for Labour, but what if David Cameron wins next May? Hopi Sen assesses the Tories’ plans

Think about the Tories winning next year. David Cameron emerging from Downing Street, wreathed in smiles. A Dimbleby intoning the words ‘Conservative majority’, quietly astonished. CCHQ loud, exuberant. The Queen’s speech to come. A prospect to prickle the skin of any Labour supporter.

It would be easy to make discussing a Conservative majority a straightforward horror story, to draw in unflattering caricature the terrible deeds of this future Tory government, blue in tooth and claw.

Easy, but wrong. It is a classic political error to convince yourself that your political opponents are worse than they are. This matters, because if you distort your opponents, you can limit the effectiveness of your attacks. The Conservative attack on Tony Blair – ‘New Labour, New Danger’ – in the run-up to the 1997 general election failed because it was transparently wrong about what the Labour party had become. Worse, by ignoring the good they hope to do, you might underestimate their appeal. Far better to take Tory plans seriously, on their own terms. If they won, what would the Conservatives see as their mission for the next parliament?

Domestically, the Tories have a reasonably clear macroeconomic agenda. First, their cornerstone of fiscal responsibility and low taxation. They will pledge to reduce the deficit through cuts alone, not higher taxes. From the Conservative perspective, this is an essential part of an agenda to encourage investment and growth in the economy. Even with improved growth projections, the consequences of this choice would be significant. A party that has quietly eased off on austerity will need to deliver severe cuts.

However, overlaid on this will likely be a more explicitly government-led science, business, infrastructure and growth programme, aimed largely at northern cities and their commuter belts. As one Tory journalist told me: ‘The main aim is to avoid a manifesto that is just the “little black book” of things the Tories would have done without the coalition.’

To assure voters that the party has something more than mere austerity to offer, expect a programme of ‘progressive supply-side reforms’ designed specifically to lift economic growth outside London and the south-east, intended to prevent the Tories being boxed in as a ‘south-only’ party. Some potential supply-side reforms, like allowing a more organic expansion of cities, will be extremely politically controversial. But, as one former adviser said, ‘If you want to know what a Cameron majority government would look like, look at the sort of issues that interested him in opposition’, in reference to the prime minister’s interest in ‘progressive ends through conservative means’. In Downing Street, figures like Neil O’Brien and Jo Johnson are likely to push for such policies and manage the politics. The next Conservative government would likely look more to Michael Heseltine than to Nigel Lawson.

Such a programme is a shift from the Tory comfort zone of business tax cuts and labour market reform. These issues would not be neglected, though. Isabel Hardman of the Spectator points to energetic, economically ‘dry’ members of the ‘free enterprise’ group of Tory members of parliament like Priti Patel, Kwasi Kwarteng and Andrea Leadsom as being likely to push for measures that drive this agenda forward.

Another proposal with broad Tory support is the desire to deliver a surplus by significant reductions in the welfare budget. Delivering such savings will be hard. Universal credit is mired in implementation hell, while disability assessments and independence payments are struggling to meet expectations.

These challenges mean direct methods to control welfare and social spending, like a freeze in tax credits and jobseeker’s allowance or an increase in conditionality, would grow in appeal. These would make it easier to hold down costs than the sort of re-engineering Iain Duncan Smith has struggled to deliver. If unemployment numbers are falling and pay rising, this might hurt less in 2015-17 than at any other time. Would Duncan Smith stick around to see his baby kicked into the long grass? Perhaps not. But it is easy to see him replaced by a fresh face with a mission to keep costs down.

Success in cutting welfare payments would reduce pressure on departmental budgets, but not remove it. This is where the fiscal discipline and refusal to raise tax will really squeeze. The party leadership will soon have to decide whether to commit to protect the NHS and schools for the next parliament. It seems hard to imagine a Conservative manifesto without such a pledge. But it would also be hard for the Tory party to let the army fall below 80,000 soldiers. Watch for defence funding to be protected over the next parliament. Dropping the protection of the international development budget to protect defence might well appeal to the party loyalists.

While it would be politically risky for the Tories not to guarantee these politically significant spending areas, the picture looks rather different for the Home Office, local government or further education. Ministers in such departments may be reaching the end of what they feel happy to cut. There is a different take on this around the Treasury, though, with one close observer confident that ‘the party is ideological enough that ministers will still feel pressure to cut their own spending.’

If there is no money, the Conservatives will need a clearer programme to lift standards in public services. Some will argue for radical insurance and voucher-based solutions, but these are politically risky, and, after significant organisational change, the more likely approach will be to systematise and focus on improving efficacy within the current rules. One quiet success has been Francis Maude’s role in the Cabinet Office, using central control to drive down the costs of government. While Tories stress that their values include trusting localities to deliver improvements without central interference, a ‘trust, but verify’ approach might still appeal, developing better mechanisms to monitor standards and intervene to prevent failure.

This ‘systems’ focus is notably different from the department-led free-for-all that drove many early coalition public service reforms This is similar to the approach Tristram Hunt has already identified as a key Labour priority. As one former No 10 staffer told me: ‘Ed Miliband’s question “Who do you go to if your kid’s school is going wrong?” is an important one.’

But it will be hard for No 10 to keep its eye on public service reform, because it will, from day one, be thrown into a life-and-death battle over Europe. Every Tory I spoke to recognised this as a defining issue for the next parliament, one with potentially devastating consequences. To date, the leadership’s European strategy has been to buy time from its backbenches by promising a referendum on the European Union, without ever quite making clear what would constitute a ‘successful renegotiation’.

Aside from those committed to leaving the EU, a significant number of Conservative MPs, though supporting EU membership in principle, want the EU in a form that will be very hard for the government to deliver. Estimates of the size of this group vary from 40 to 100 MPs, depending on commitment to the issue. Even at the lower end, this is more than enough to severely damage the Tory party.

One strong supporter of the prime minister, when asked how Cameron could satisfy his party on Europe, simply said: ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure anyone does.’ Another former adviser worried that the gap between what the party wanted on Europe and what could be delivered by renegotiation was simply ‘unbridgeable’.

The two years leading up to a 2017 referendum will see the long-delayed Tory confrontation with Europe finally come to a head. Every Conservative will need to decide where they stand, and that has the potential to break the party in two.

If Cameron wins next May he will lead a government that will face incredible pressures on spending, with sharp consequences for the structure of our public services and the nature of our welfare state. He will also lead a government that will endanger Britain’s place in Europe. This is not because the prime minister wishes to make life in Britain worse, but simply because, to deliver the economic agenda he believes is needed, leading the party he does, Cameron’s priorities mean that on everything from public services to the welfare state, from spending cuts to Europe, there will be a price his government will argue is worth paying.

It will be for Labour to show that this is a false choice and that there is a better way to deliver the economic progress the Tories believe only they will offer the country.

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