Manifesto > Enterprise: The path to recovery (Introduction) | A Strategy for Growth and Prosperity | Low, Simple and Fair Taxation | Cutting the cost of the state | Deregulation: Industry, Employment and Incomes | Finance and Credit | Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries and Foods

Enterprise: The path to recovery

Rescuing our economy from disaster

Britain has been brought to the brink of financial collapse.  We actually predicted this a number of years ago when Gordon Brown was still being hailed as one of our most successful Chancellors ever.

Political leaders, both here and in the United States, have responded to the crisis with massive borrowing and spending programmes which unfortunately do not address the systemic problems that precipitated the crisis in the first place.

They are now intent on passing a huge burden of debt to the next generation – rising to 70% of GDP even on the government's own conservative figures.  Successive governments that had the opportunity to lower the debt burden during times of growth failed to do so, thus we are now borrowing on a massive scale from a position of profound weakness.

This is the most important issue we now face.  If we cannot turn this around our future is bleak.  We need to learn this simple truth: a return to prosperity cannot come from putting up barriers to the outside world and relying on government spending.  We need to fix the fundamentals first and understand that prosperity derives from hard work and enterprise.  To be competitive in the global economy we need to restore individual initiative, improve incentives and reduce the burdens of regulation and taxation.

In this section:

A Strategy for Growth and Prosperity

Low, Simple and Fair Taxation

Cutting the cost of the state

Deregulation: Industry, Employment and Incomes

Finance and Credit

Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries and Foods