BRITAIN FIRST

In an open letter, Norman Tebbit urges lain Duncan Smith to forget the Eurozealots and concentrate on what the people want

DEAR lain, You could hardly have chosen a more troubled time to be elected leader of the Conservative party. Britain's internal politics are overshadowed by the scale of the terrorist assault on Western democracy and international commerce. People tend to rally behind the government at such times and New Labour will not easily be prised out of power.

Our party's election process has ensured that you clearly have overwhelming support from its members. However, the inordinately lengthy process afforded the extremist hard-line Eurozealots too much time to poison the well which was polluted 11 years ago when Margaret Thatcher was brought down. They are, however, few in number, and most of Ken Clarke's grassroots supporters voted for him, despite, not because of, his Eurozealotry, because they knew him, liked his truculence, associated him with the glory days of Margaret Thatcher and thought him more likely to win the next election. They, and the careerists in the parliamentary party, will switch their support to you, although a tiny vociferous minority will oppose you, or any other leaders unwilling to follow a neo-Labour line. Until you narrow that huge opinionpoll gap which has lasted almost a decade since the Exchange Rate Mechanism fiasco, they will play Blair's game depicting you as a suicidal leader of an extreme right-wing cult.

I thought your shadow Cabinet and other front-bench appointments were shrewdly made, although I think it a pity that neither John Redwood nor Andrew Lansley has been able to be included. It was generous of Michael Howard to return to the front bench and David Davis is an excellent choice for party chairman. Having seen Bill Cash handling Euro legislation like a garden mulcher consuming hedge clippings, I wait to see him bringing his talent for detail in other areas, and with Quentin Davies and David Willetts among others, you have combined inclusivity and talent to good effect. Ignore complaints that your team has a majority of Eurosceptics and economic liberals. After all, in electing you that is what the party asked for.

I know you want the party to think about more things than Europe. That would have been impossible had Ken won the leadership and campaigned alongside the bumptious Charles Kennedy on Blair's New Labour Euro platform to attack his own party's policy.

What the party needs is a war cry other than Europe. That issue will haunt Labour as the country realises that it is the European Union which prevents us even from controlling immigration. At the last two elections Blair's cry was 'Save the NHS'. Ours needs to be more all-encompassing. Something like 'Save Britain from Third World status'.

Already parts of the once-proud NHS have descended to Third World status with the filthy wards and trolley queues of sick and dying patients. Illiteracy is growing, and, despite the trumpeted increase in examination passes, everyone knows that many youngsters leave school barely numerate and profoundly ignorant of the history, culture and geography of their own country, let alone the wider world, with the cultural horizons of a football yob, but already parents of another generation born into a world of deprivation.

Welfare dependency is growing, violent crime is on the increase, and our television, once a model for the world, now harbours a growing sub-cultural cesspit of violence. Our transport system is increasingly sclerotic, industry is in decline, in many urban areas Third World standards prevail, and an unending, uncontrolled flood of immigrants is bringing services to the point of collapse.

Taxes are rising; government — local, regional and national — is expanding; professional politicians proliferate like rabbits, but the quality of every service they provide is in decline.

Against that background I think you will find the public ready to contemplate radical change; but not privatisation of their hospitals, which rightly or wrongly they believe would give priority to profit not patient care. Clearly, however, the old Stalinist NHS beloved by Ken Clarke and Tony Blair has failed. Money poured into the Department of Health never reaches the hard-pressed medical staff. It simply evaporates like rain falling over the desert before it reaches the ground. The vast hordes of civil servants, regional boards, district authorities and officials treat patients and cure no disease, They are non-productive overheads, Your potential allies are the hospital staff who must help in managing their hospitals as independent charitable businesses. Current funding at least (and capital in the longer run) must come from the health department, firmly linked to the treatment of individual patients.

Greater patient choice in choosing hospitals and doctors would underline that they, the customers, not the NHS or secretary of state, are the ultimate employer.

Similarly, as you know, only teachers can deliver better education. They are not all a bolshie, left-wing rabble. Most are dedicated, hard-working professionals, overloaded with bumph, at risk of physical assault and threat of unfair legal or disciplinary action. Offer them power and reasonable protection to impose discipline. Reduce the prescriptive burden of the National Curriculum. Make it simple. Give parents greater freedom of choice. Abolish local education authorities — they do not add value to schools. Let head teachers and governors run schools — expanding, if successful and being taken over if they are failing. Fund them by a capitation allowance — variable to pay more in deprived areas or for non-English-speaking pupils.

In my experience — and yours, I think — it is often poor immigrant families who are most anxious to see their children educated. They should be trusted to do so. Some will fail; but today failure is all but universal in many such places.

Please do not forget bow many voters are motorists. Promise that speed cam eras will be used only where there is a real accident risk. Make them obvious so as to be deterrents — not revenue earners. Promise that if motorists are convicted for speeds only just above the limit you will cancel their penalty points. Undertake to remove the artificial road constrictions and maximise the capacity of existing roads. Instruct the police to clear traffic hold-ups as they used to do years ago.

You were right to talk of the need to reduce tax as a proportion of national wealth. Stick with it. Low tax economies afford better public services because they grow faster. Concentrate cuts on the dead weight of DSS and DEE hangers-on and the welfare rackets. Provided you treat pensioners well, you will have public support to crack down on freeloaders.

Justice is now being impeded by lawyers. The compensation culture is being fed by so-called 'human rights lawyers. Judges are exploiting the flabbiness of ill-drafted legislation to make the law what they want it to be. You must ensure that Parliament regains control of legislation — making laws for judges to administer as Parliament intends, Do not be put out by exhibitionist political pygmies with giant egos. Look at their records. Most of them have no talent for achievement. Of course, Mr Blair and his Broadcasting Corporation will call you an extreme right-winger for agreeing with Tony Benn that Britain should remain an independent, self-governing democracy. The European establishment and the Foreign Office will try to undermine you as they did Margaret Thatcher and William Hague.

I hardly need say, neither overnor under-estimate them, They are rich, powerful and greedy for power, but the people of Britain can be more powerful by far if you lead them with courage and truth.

Good luck. You can do it.