The Cornerstone Group

David Cameron this week drew a clear dividing line between the Conservatives and Labour. He did this by backing the Tories commitment to the institution of marriage, when Ian Duncan-Smith’s think tank proposed a transferable tax allowance for married couples. If the public had been crying out for some choice, then yesterday they got it.

IDS’s call for the “biggest shake-up of the welfare system of the 1940s” has sent ripples through Westminster and the media.  The Sun claimed that the proposals, “had to be a good thing”, referring to the £3.2 billion proposed tax break. Financially this may sound a lot but it is nothing compared to the cost of the breakdown of the family - £102 billion.

The proposals send a message to the general public, that the Conservatives believe that marriage is the foundation of society. No surprise that Labour opposed it. Their anti-marriage bias has negatively contributed to increased drug abuse, increased poverty, declining education standards and soaring debt.

Under Labour married couples are penalised for making a commitment to each other, in the form of Gordon Brown’s wasteful tax credit system which penalises two parent families. Cameron is taking the Party where Brown cannot tread.

Julian Brazier MP

 There I was, sitting outside a café on the Rive Gauche, yesterday, as you do, sipping a small beer, watching the world go by and considering where to go for lunch before catching the Eurostar back to London.So what was I doing in Paris on a pleasant Sunday in late June?

 Returning from a massive rally, held in the outskirts of the city, attended by some 50,000 supporters of the National Council for Resistance in Iran which has taken up most of the previous day.

But that’s not the point.

As I sat in the dappled sunshine I played the people game, which involves the creation of a biography based on the brief information gleaned as people passed. No doubt you have played a similar game.

Normally the game is of little consequence but on this occasion my eye was drawn to a family group consisting of mid-30ish parents surrounded by 5 children ranging from 8-15. 

The family were clearly not wealthy. In fact they obviously struggled a bit financially. But the children were confident, well behaved, healthy and mutually supportive. 

However I was especially drawn to the parents. The mother had been a very slim, attractive lady in the provocative way that young French girls who don’t deliberately flaunt their sexuality can be. But age and the demands of a young family had tired her and her flesh, which should have plumped out prior to menopause, had become a little emaciated by toil.

Even so she was deeply loved.

Her husband held her tightly to him as though she were the most precious thing in his life. His arm supported her, clasped her as if to tell the world she was the centre of his being. And she surely was. So what’s the point?

Iain Duncan Smith is shortly to publish his recommendations based on the massive research his Policy Commission has undertaken into the dependent society entitled ‘Breakdown Britain.’ I don’t know what his recommendations will be but I would bet that family breakdown will lie at the centre of them. I would put even more money on his proposing the strengthening of the marriage contract by a more supportive tax regime and a more creative benefit structure and it goes without saying that the Conservative Party must accept those proposals.

 We learnt only this weekend that marriage, as an institution, has fallen to its lowest level since records began. And that means more children born outside marriage which itself leads to more ‘guest’ father. So what’s wrong with that I hear you ask?

Children need fathers and real fathers are guys who are prepared to fill that role at least until a child reaches maturity. Not difficult really. 

Yet all too often the natural father disappears early in a child’s life and a casual ‘guest’ father appears who will be great for six months but will, more often that not, become frustrated with his lot, start abusing both mother and child and the rot sets in.

The cycle thereafter repeats itself two or three times in a child’s formative years, the damage becomes irreparable and the child, especially if it is a boy, comes to the conclusion that men are incapable of real parental love and they themselves, in their turn, assume a similar role. The sins of the father really do impact adversely upon the third and fourth generations.

And what has the French family got to do with all this. Nothing at all other than they reminded me of the importance of stable family units within a caring society.

Iain’s work proves that the breakdown of family life, especially in our inner cities, is synonymous with abuse, drug addiction, alcoholism, anti-social behaviour and crime. Of course most of us believe that to be true all along. Sadly New Labour didn’t. Gordon Brown, the architect of Labours economic policies for the last fifteen years, will now try to argue that it wasn’t his fault. He must not be allowed to get away it.

Brian Binley MP

So Tony Blair has gone…Our crypto-Conservative Prime Minister of the last 10 years can no longer distort the classic battle of left and right.

This is a good moment to launch the redesigned Cornerstone website.

We represent traditional Tory themes of nation, family, enterprise and compassion, founded on Judaeo-Christian ethics.

We keep the flame burning because we believe that a vigorous discussion about Conservative ideas can be of immense value to our party in the remaining two or three years to the General Election.

The election results last week were solid, if not spectacular in the North and the Midlands. Nevertheless an extra 911 seats marks significant progress

We have made a very good start. We need to do more.

We have a most attractive, young and personable leader, whom we support as the democratically elected leader of our Party. For Britain’s sake, we must ensure that he is our next Prime Minister.

We applaud our leader’s decision to reach out to people who have yet to vote for us, and for him to talk about environmental and poverty issues, where we have undersold ourselves in the past – and to speak up in favour of marriage. ‘And’, not ‘but’ or ‘however’. And.

We need to recognise that the people, our people, the aspiring people of this country, are labouring under record levels of taxation, regulation and stultifying political correctness.

We need to explain how we will root out waste and inefficiency from our public services.

We need to explain how we will return people’s hard-won earnings to where they belong – their own families.

David Cameron is right that marriage is the bedrock of society. Sadly the selfless coming together of men and women with a genuine attempt at commitment for life is under sustained assault.

We need to explain how we will buttress and support it through the tax and benefit system, as George Osborne has begun to do.

More and more powers are still seeping out of our historic Parliament to unaccountable European bureaucrats. We must explain how we will reverse the trend.

Record levels of immigration are straining good race relations. We must develop tough but fair policies that stem the tide.

Speaking personally, I believe that too many children suffer from indifferent comprehensive schools. As I have argued previously, we must articulate our belief in parental choice, including vouchers and freedom for head teachers to hire and fire, select and de-select, that will set schools free.

We must use tax relief to help more people afford private health care for the irritating non-urgent conditions which the NHS cannot afford to cope with as we all live longer.

Over the coming weeks and months, colleagues will be free to post on this website their detailed ideas for the future.

Let me be clear, there is no corporate Cornerstone view; everybody is responsible for their own words.

Over the coming months there will also be periodic ‘thought for the day’ comments from a Cornerstone member.

All this is offered up in the spirit of making a positive contribution to the Conservative policy development process which reaches its conclusion this summer and autumn.

I believe that our faith in our country, our families and in the hard work of the British people must be proclaimed by a Conservative Party that is rooted in never-changing beliefs and principles.

I hope that Cornerstone members will make a positive and useful contribution to the success of our Party.

Edward Leigh is Co-Chairman of The Cornerstone Group.