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		The Devil and Polly Toynbee European Journal - December 2006 I was horrified to see the headline in the Guardian on November 22nd saying "Tories ditch Churchill and follow Polly Toynbee". This was based on a leaked memo from Greg Clark MP, and I wrote to him immediately saying I hoped that the report was based on misinformation from our opponents. I added that I would rather follow the Devil than Polly Toynbee. To be fair to Greg, he replied at some length explaining that he was referring to Toynbee's imagery, in particular the "caravan across the desert" metaphor implying that none should be left behind, and assuring me explicitly that he did not support or espouse Toynbee's statist and redistributive prescriptions for ending poverty. Well and good, but too late. The misconception had made headlines before the truth had got its boots on. Public opinion is based on headlines, not on explanatory e-mails sent after the event. David Cameron appeared to underline the headline impression when he suggested that Toynbee would be welcome at a Conservative Party Conference. Polly Toynbee embodies the central myth of socialism: that the way to solve problems of poverty and inequality is to take money from the wealthy and give it to the poor. Like so many socialist nostrums, this idea seems so obvious as to be almost a truism. Yet it has been tested to destruction, and it has failed time and again. It never solves poverty, and the only equality it achieves is equality of misery. The Toynbee approach reduces incentives at the top end, and creates dependency at the bottom end. Dependency erodes incentive and ambition and self-reliance. It infantilises its victims. On Nov 27th a new report from the think-tank Reform showed the huge failure of Gordon Brown's attempts at redistribution. We spend more on welfare than any other EU country, yet we have created the worst poverty-trap, the greatest disincentive to work and self-reliance, in Europe. The horrid truth is that this Labour government has reduced social mobility and denied opportunity to poor people. Nor do we need the solution proposed by Danny Finkelstein (much as I hate to disagree with a normally sound man!). Mr Finkelstein concludes that ending poverty forever "will require a very different programme of small-scale, precisely targeted policies". No Danny. The last thing we need is detailed, complicated, intrusive, prescriptive interventions, no doubt run by an army of bureaucrats. Governments should stand back and restrict themselves to creating a broad framework in which opportunity and self-reliance flourish. We should start by creating a low-tax enterprise economy, which will attract investment and promote opportunity, jobs and prosperity. Then we need to ensure that our education system delivers the sort of people able to do the jobs we've created. Not by turning our backs on grammar schools, but by giving the greatest possible freedom to parents, governors and teachers to create excellent schools suited to their catchment areas. I am not asking for the best education system in the world, or even the best education system in Europe. I would just like to see an education system which delivers results broadly in line with other advanced countries, which ensures that virtually everyone can read and write and add up, a system that delivers new undergraduates equipped to start their degree courses, and not requiring remedial elementary education before they can start to study. In short, an education system as good as the one I went through in the fifties. Surely that is not too much to ask? But we don't have that today, and the deterioration is on-going. I have a member of staff with a sister five years younger. Their mother insists she can see the extent to which education has declined between one sibling and the other. My own view is that an educational voucher system would bring the disciplines of the market to education, and drive higher standards. It would also encourage parents to think of themselves as "customers" of the system, and would motivate them to expect value not only from the schools, but from the discipline and efforts of their children. While we're at it, exactly the same comments apply to the health service. I'm not asking for the best in the world, but a system as good as France or Germany would be nice. For both education and health, the solution is straightforward. We need to remove the dead hand of Whitehall, and set free the invisible hand of Adam Smith. The Conservative Party is arguing that we should now consider relative rather than absolute poverty. But that is only meaningful if we accept another socialist idea: that there is something intrinsically wrong with wealth and success. I am happy to argue that no one should be too poor, but I will never argue that anyone is too rich. It is true that as society becomes richer, the minimum expectations of the poor should rise. But that is merely to raise Churchill's safety net, not to abandon it. Churchill was right. Toynbee is wrong, disastrously wrong, and her policy prescriptions are profoundly damaging. It's time for the leadership of the Conservative Party to stop behaving like shock jocks. There is more to politics that simply infuriating our core supporters. We need to talk about liberty, opportunity and social mobility. We need to talk about circumscribing government and setting the people free.