Daily View: Reactions to the Tory manifesto

Clare Spencer|09:25 UK time, Wednesday, 14 April 2010

David Cameron Commentators make their judgements about the Conservative manifesto.

In the Independent John Rentoul calls the manifesto a fallacy and accuses David Cameron of being careless:

"There is a carelessness about the past in Cameron that is curious for a Conservative. He did it again towards the end of the long morning's show. 'The politicians have been treating the public like mugs for about 40 years,' he said. At least it was a change from his usual 'taking the public for fools', but he inadvertently trampled on Mrs Thatcher's period."

Philip Johnston in the Telegraph judges the Conservative manifesto by its cover, which he thinks is "strikingly workmanlike" and leads to something "genuinely new and radical":

"It is entitled Invitation to Join the Government of Britain - and however daunting that might sound to a nation that has become used to nannyish molly-coddling it is an opportunity to halt and reverse the expansion of the state."

In the Guardian Martin Kettle says there is a lot to like about Mr Cameron's "Big Society" idea:

"The Tory Launch was all about a sense of new possibilities... Personally, I like the sound of a lot of things in Cameron's idea. I write this not as a sympathiser but as someone with an open mind about it. Yet looking at the day's events again on the news bulletins last night, what struck me most about the Tory launch was that it all looked a bit disconnected from real life. It was a bit too clever - and thus ultimately, and paradoxically, foolish - to hold the launch in a power station that doesn't generate anything, to call the manifesto an 'Invitation to Join the Government of Britain' and then to centre it on a 'big society' idea that is hard to work out in practice for many people."

Faisal Islam at Channel 4 News says the manifesto outlines an original vision for Britain but worries that it may be hiding post-election pessimism:

"[T]here are no new numbers in this manifesto and what we see is a Conservative party in an election fiscal holding pattern. And to be clear, the Labour manifesto too omitted the most important facts about how your life is to be affected by political decisions made by the people you will elect in three weeks time."

JK Rowling argues in Times that the Tory plan for the third sector to replace the welfare state and marriage tax breaks are both bad for single mothers:

"When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major's Government, was there to break the fall...Child poverty remains a shameful problem in this country, but it will never be solved by throwing millions of pounds of tax breaks at couples who have no children at all. David Cameron tells us that the Conservatives have changed, that they are no longer the 'nasty party', that he wants the UK to be 'one of the most family-friendly nations in Europe', but I, for one, am not buying it. He has repackaged a policy that made desperate lives worse when his party was last in power, and is trying to sell it as something new. I've never voted Tory before ... and they keep on reminding me why."

Political blogger Bill Jones says in his blog Skipper that the Tories' manifesto breaks new ground:

"The Conservartive manifesto is surprising and impressive in its ambition. The product of what we learn is years of gestation, this weighty 130 page document invites each voter to 'join in' the government of the country' and take back control from the state."

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