Parents ensure the budget balances. You don't spend what you don't have. You care for your family. You put the interests of your children above your own. You are responsible and sensible. You want rights but with responsibilities. The Conservatives have always been the party of freedom and will abolish a raft of pointless laws early on and give families the right to thrive without state interference.
The Times says much that needs to be said today:-
"General election day is a celebration of democracy. And on one of those rare election days ? there have been only two in the past thirty years ? when a change of government seems possible, it can feel like a day of liberation. Today, however, feels very different. The mood is sombre. And we will all exercise our democratic right with an unusual weight of responsibility.
Britain is in trouble. This election comes at a time when the quiet assumptions of our nation and its politics are in question. It is no longer clear that Britain will be able to remain a great power, or a harmonious society, or one prosperous enough to be able to guarantee its citizens liberty and justice.
In 2005 Tony Blair sought re-election under the slogan ?Forward, not back?. It appeared a bland campaign motto, but was rather clever. It was an attempt to appropriate to Labour the inevitable proceeds of growth and the credit for progress that the country always sees. So it is striking that it would be a risky proposition to run on such a slogan now. We can no longer take it for granted that Britain will go forward, not back.
This country could well become less than it was ? less prosperous, less cohesive, less significant in the world: a country where employment among 16 to 17-year-olds is at a record low is one in which business is no longer providing enough jobs for young people. We have increased state spending by 54 per cent in the past 13 years but cannot boast world-class public services. The State has become more intrusive as it has become larger, threatening civil liberties. We are not going forward. We may go back.
Election day 2010 is the moment when this country will have to stop running away from its debts. For the past two years, as we tried to fend off recession, we have been shoving the bills into a drawer without opening the envelopes. This has to end today. The price of our borrowing will have to be paid.
Across Europe you can see the social breakdown that is the inevitable consequence of government and people living beyond their means. Murder, arson and riots may be a Greek tragedy today. But this tragedy awaits any European nation that does not begin to reduce its public borrowing. Britain is fortunate that it did not heed the advice of those who wanted us to enter the euro. But if we do not reduce our borrowing in line with our earnings, then a Greek tragedy awaits us too.
In 1997, as a nation, we decided that we needed to find more and more money for public services. But the policy we then embarked upon was not sustainable. We overspent badly. Increasing public spending faster than the rate of economic growth was bound, at some point, to collide with reality. And now it has. The alternative now is to reshape the State so that it does not require an ever increasing proportion of national income to fund it properly. This will require some bold decisions and some very hard ones. During the campaign it proved possible to avoid some of them. No longer.
This election is unlike other watershed moments. In 1979, the case for sorting out the economy scarcely needed to be articulated. When rubbish lies uncollected in the streets and the electricity does not work, you know it is time for a change. Today?s economic crisis, in contrast, is more remote. But it is no less real or significant.
The Times has already cast its vote. It is not, of course, for us to tell you how to vote, only how we think. We believe that the Conservative Party is best placed to tackle the vast economic challenges ahead. It is now the turn of the electorate to decide. How the next government handles the economy will prove decisive for the future of this country. At every election, party leaders solicitous of your vote, and media commentators hopeful of your attention, will tell you that the stakes are high, that this time it matters. So often the significance is inflated. Not this time. This election will define Britain for the next generation. "
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article7117547.ece