David Cameron - deficit slicer!

David Cameron spoke today about his plans to cut spending and reduce the deficit. He (quite bravely, in my opinion) spoke of actual spending cuts rather than pretending that the debt crisis can be solved with 'reductions in spending increases', or a 'zero-percent increase' (a favourite of the Labour party). Most of the speech dealt with small beer. Cutting back Quangos and other public sector 'fat cutting' that will probably create very little real controversy if the Tories come in to government (except with some in the civil service, no doubt). But the best thing about Cameron's speech was his obvious willingness to create a culture of smaller government and lower spending. He also finally pointed out that no-one in the Conservative Party will actually enjoy slashing spending and firing public servants (about time someone pointed out that Conservatives do not sit around rubbing our hands at the prospect of putting people out of work).

In a good, workmanlike speech, Cameron also spelled out a number of his plans for change in Parliament. He ran through a number of populist, Parliament-bashing themes, such as cutting the salaries of Ministers and halving the number of government cars for Ministers. However, there were a couple of suggestions that he had that I take some small issue with. First he plans to do away with the communication allowance that is given to MP's to allow them to communicate with their constituents. The argument is that this is little more than publicly funded propaganda and helps to protect incumbents against challengers. While I can see some good points in this argument, I believe that MP's need to be able to communicate with their constituents.

The other is cutting the number of MP's. I've heard all the arguments in favour of cutting the number of MP's, but I am concerned about the possible democratic deficit that would exist if you cut the number of MP's. As constituencies get bigger, it becomes more difficult for MP's to communicate with constituents, and also makes it harder to represent the people. If Britain had a federal system like the United States (and so people had a state or devolved Parliament to vote for as well as the Westminster Parliament) I would feel differently. However, I am a strong believer that the government governs best that governs closest to the people.

But I won't pretend like this is a major revolution. Cameron is calling for only 10% of the seats being cut, and to be fair most of these will certainly come from Scotland, where seats are significantly smaller than the English seats and ought to be increased to the same size.

However, one thing I would have liked to hear from Cameron but didn't is a cut in the number of Ministers. If you want to cut the waste in government, then there is plenty of fat to cut in the number of ministers and junior cabinet secretaries.

Update: David Cameron has since announced he will cut the number of Ministerial positons