How should the Tories build on their excellent current approval ratings, to position themselves optimally for a 2015 election?

[longfingernails]

Thanks to Cameron's uncharacteristic show of courage, the Tories are ending 2011 in the ascendency.

My first suggestions:

• Engineer a showdown with the European Court of Human Rights over prisoner voting; if we can leave then all the better.
• Continue raising the lower income tax threshold.
• Make any taxpayer funding of any trade union activity illegal.
• Turbocharge the Gove reforms; the more the NUT and NASUWT squeal the better.
• Abandon High Speed 2 and invest in dozens of small suburban rail projects in marginal constituencies instead.
• Put Jeremy Browne in charge of Business (he seems like a genuinely deregulatory Lib Dem who will cut red tape); move the Stalinist Cable to the essentially non-job of the Environment once, as seems likely according to current reports, Chris Huhne gets prosecuted.
• Get rid of the 50p tax rate for all those who can prove that they generate at least 3 other downstream jobs; they have similar systems I think in America (at least in some states)
• Sack Ken Clarke and Crispin Blunt, get some real conservatives in the MOJ; a good opportunity to promote some of the 2010 intake.
• Above all, continue doing things which makes the Guardian, the large Mumsnet contingent who parrot Polly Toynbee's every word, and Guardian TV (aka the BBC) "froth" in Islington dinner party rage.

Any more ideas?

LFN - I generally agree with your list.

I would add that they have to make an irrevocable promise to hold a proper Referendum on Europe within 6 months after the next election.

Keep Ken Clarke and encourage prisoner education AND prisoner voting - perhaps Buckingham University would develop courses for prisoners to compete with the thinly-veiled communism peddled by the OU? Since intelligent educated people are more likely to vote for conservative policies, the party would then have a whole new voting bloc.

Peg the minimum wage to MP's salaries.

Raise income tax rates to where they were in the glory days of Thatcherism - say 1986?

Eliminate income taxes for those who can prove that they are caring for at least 3 other people who would otherwise be in state care.

Eliminate income taxes for those who can prove that they are caring for at least 3 other people who would otherwise be in state care

I can't imagine anybody caring for 3 other people could possibly have time to earn enough to be paying any income tax in the first place

LFN "No - I am not a Tory" Wow, how easily fooled I am.

Ponders, anyone who knows they are going to have to care for people full-time in the future will have saved enough in their earlier working life to have a buy-to-let portfolio or substantial investments.

joanofarchitrave - why save? If they can predict the future there's money to be made from crystal-balling.

Love, love love Michael Gove.
He is the best thing to happen to education in 30 years.

You know you'll feel embarrassed sooner than you think :)

anyone who knows they are going to have to care for people full-time in the future will have saved enough in their earlier working life to have a buy-to-let portfolio or substantial investments

is it me?

surely the vast majority of the ordinary population these days barely earn enough to pay for themselves, let alone having any left over to invest for some hypothetical future caring responsibility

surely an excellent idea would be to automatically allow all middle class people to carry guns?

Sugar - yes, and execute people who go on strike. Hang on, someone already thought of that.

[Sorry Ponders, there is a thread of seriousness to my posts, but mostly they are tongue in cheek I'm afraid. However, I'd be genuinely delighted if the Coalition did implement these policies.]

oh sorry, joan

I always get sucked into these threads & can't tell half the time who means it & who doesn't

Anyone who's unhappy with the coalition, don't worry. All is well. Mr Milliband is riding to the rescue with....... wait for it.... optimism! That's all he needs, according to his New Year statement. Won't be spending any more money than the coalition - hope he's told Ed Balls - but he'll be smiling as he does it. So that's OK then.

When Tessa Jowell (TEssa Jowell!) admits they are stuffed, things are really bad for that callow youth with a personality by-pass.

-Increase the threshold at which income tax/NI is payed to above £12k so that if you are in work but on a low wage you get to keep more of your income. Also reduce tax credits each year so that it pays to work and you get the benefit from working and discourage living off the state and having more kids to fund living off the state.
-Build more prisons.
-Tax unearned income, especially from speculative investments such as buy to let.
-Raise capital gains tax back up to 40%.
-Cut benefits across the board so that no household can claim more than £350 per week in benefits. Any excess saved can be used to help the genuinely disabled and critically ill.
-Cut all the red tape and punitive taxes on doing business and make the UK an attractive place to set up companies.
-Regulate the city so that 2008/2011 cannot be repeated.
-Renegotiate our relationship with the EU so that EU judges cannot override decisions made here. If that doesn't work, leave the EU.
-Stop giving money to countries that have space programmes.
-Raise interest rates and get the fallout over and done for the few overleveraged, rather than prolonging years and years of stagnation in the economy and housing market and encourage responsible saving for pensions rather than investing in speculative assets.

Just a few things I would do.

yay! Merry Christmas and let's celebrate how IDS is scaring teh fuck out of the disabled and poorer people in our society!

Cheers and I hope the Tories self implode with all their nasty little policies.

Genuinely disabled? Is that the ones passing the TOS tests that have something like a 70% overturn rate and is costing teh state megabucks to sort?

hahahaha.

"Longfingernails, may I recommend the FT's education coverage to cure you of your Gove love?

You could hardly accuse the paper of political bias........."

Ha ha ha.... That made me smile.....

Chris Cooke is an excellent analyst and a good journalist - but his loathing of Gove was apparent well before this e-mail "discovery".

Well, if Scotland gets independence then that really will be the end of Labour governments of the future in England.

joanofarchitrave - sorry to disappoint you but research has shown that the most intelligent, educated voters are, in order, Green, Labour, Tory and finally (no surprise here) BNP.

The Tory party is known as the Stupid party traditionally for a number of reasons.

Orwellian - agree with all your list except capping benefits to all at £350/week - I think caps for disabled families (if they need to exist at all) should be far higher as they often face far higher expenses and need to do dull things like eat, sleep under a roof and heat.

To your list i would add a huge nationwide programme of house-building, thus in one blow both providing much-needed homes for ordinary people, reducing housing costs so that the nation's wealth can be spent on productive assets, increasing skills in the construction industry and of course increasing employment in the construction industry.

I would ensure that the govt led from above by immediately removing any politician guilty of any expenses malpractice and banning them from any future political role, in the Lords or Commons (on indeed as local councillors), and removing honours from anyone convicted of any crime. They would also lose any pensions or pay-offs associated with the role.

Orwellian
I've never really understood the call to raise the income tax level and reduce the tax credits level.
Surely this would mean that everyone would benefit, including those that earn an absolute fortune.
Whilst it costs a lot to administer tax credits, it does mean that those with higher incomes don't necessarily benefit as they would from a higher income tax level