Conservative policy on Northern Rock

There has been some criticism from the media and the wider political world that the Conservatives have not put forward a clear and crisp alternative to the Government’s actions on Northern Rock.

Why is this? Before I answer, I would like to discuss a situation.

Imagine you discover that a jerry can of petrol has fallen over and spilled its contents over the floor of you basement. You mop up the spill with old newspapers and rags that have accumulated down there over the years.

When you have finished you sit amongst the rags and paper and light up a cigarette to relax. Somehow, the petrol impregnated paper catches fire and before you know it, the whole cellar is ablaze.

You run upstairs to the front door and just as you are about to make your escape you remember the signed photo of Arthur Scargill that you keep in the attic, you don’t want to lose that to the fire.

So you run up the stairs to save the picture, but in doing so you let the fire engulf the stairs. You climb through the attic window onto the roof and watch the flames fill the attic behind you.

What do you do next?

1. Jump from the roof to your almost certain death?
2. Sit on the roof and wait for the flames to engulf you?
3. None of the above because you wouldn’t have been so stupid as to get into that situation in the first place?

The reason that the Conservatives can’t put forward an easy “get out of jail” plan for Northern Rock is because Brown and Darling have screwed things up so royally up until this point. They are the ones who have painted every tax payer in the country into a corner and it is a joke for them to point to the Conservatives and say, “now get out of that”.

The Conservatives do not need and indeed should not be sucked into speculative policy making with regard to Northern Rock. We should exclusively focus on making sure a debacle like this cannot happen on our watch.

Labour started this fire let them work out how to extinguish it.