Farming

"I am from the government and I am here to help," is a sentence calculated to strike fear into the heart of any farmer. The fiasco of the Rural Payments Agency and its failure to deliver the Single Farm Payment has reinforced farmers' deep scepticism about the competence of this government and its concern for the people who live and work in rural areas.

We are not going to make grand promises about the future of farming under a Conservative government and then let everyone down like Labour has done. A Conservative government would focus on three practical steps to help British farmers:

  1. Cutting the burden of unnecessary farming regulations and inspections
  2. Making it easier for consumers to buy British by improving food labeling
  3. Use public procurement to strengthen the link between food grown in our fields and the meals served in our schools and hospitals

 


Nick Boles

07 JAN 2010

Let the voters have their say

While most people in the country have been worrying about how to get to work through the snow and ice and who's going to look after their children while their school is closed, everyone in Westminster has spent the last two days talking about the latest Labour plot to get rid of Gordon Brown.  I don't know about you but I am heartily sick of these stories.  Gordon Brown has been Prime Minister for the last two years.  The British people had no say in his election to that office.   At the very least, they deserve an opportunity to pass their own verdict on his tenure of it.  And a general election is the way to let them do it.

05 JAN 2010

My NHS, your NHS, our NHS

David Cameron has kicked off the Conservatives' campaign for change with a billboard promising cuts in the budget deficit and not the NHS.  Our opponents doubt the depth and sincerity of the Conservatives' commitment to the NHS.  But I hope that no-one will doubt David Cameron's - or mine.  David has talked of the huge debt he and his family owe the NHS for the way doctors and nurses looked after Ivan and helped make his short life a more bearable one.  What some of you may not know is that I have my own personal reason to thank the NHS.  In the spring of 2007, before I moved to Lincolnshire, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease,  a cancer of the lymph system.  Although I had private health insurance at the time, I relied on the NHS for every aspect of my treatment.  And the care I received throughout several months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy was superb.  Can the NHS be reformed and improved?  Of course it can.  But can I countenance a Britain without it?  Over my dead body.