Win The Crowd

You would expect some crowd pleasing initiatives around the time of party conferences. The Tories were always more prone than Labour to put Ministers before a conference with a section of their speech which began, "That is why, conference, I am proud to announce today a new yada yada....".

So that is the context we should put yesterday's deliberate leak about a consultation on raising the speed limit on motorways to 80 mph. It will appeal to the bar room bores and the tea party headbangers but not to anyone who knows much about road safety.

The only problem is that the fools look like they are actually going to do it. Transport Sec, Philip Hammond said the limit was , "out of date" because of "huge advances in safety and motoring technology".

Britain has the safest roads roads in the world, a better record than even those reckless Swedes. The numbers of fatalilties on the road has fallen from 12,000 in 1965 to 3,000. The Conservatives appear to be doing their best to reverse that trend - they have swallowed years of bitter reactionary Mail editorials about speed cameras and the war on the motorist as rational argument. The objective of all these measures was to save lives. Road deaths are expensive, about £1.5m each.

According to Hammond the total has plummeted because brakes are better now. The very successful drink-driving campaign run by COI (abolished by Tories) can take plenty of credit as can speed cameras (being shut down) and much improved road engineering, signing, education...

Hammond's horror struck officials have not even done anything more than take a cursory look at it and cannot demonsrate any of the Ministers justifications have any relevance whatever.

One lesson the Cons should have learned from the Blair years is that yielding to the Mail does not actual gain you votes - it just loses you credibility.

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Hammond's fawning to the Mail brigade was easily eclipsed by Theresa May telling the Sunday Telegraph she wanted to repeal the Human Rights Act. There are annoying cases on the edges but the HRA is the cornerstone of our post war civil society and has allowed us to overcome many prejudices and gross inequalities. But what should be a source of pride is simply shameful and infuriating to the self-centred little Englander minority.