NEWS ........

The party recently fought its worst campaign ever. It offered cleaner hospitals, better schools, safer streets, limits on immigration and almost imperceptible tax cuts. But who campaigned for dirtier hospitals, worse schools, less safe streets or unlimited migration?

Our vote flatlined at 32.3 per cent, just a fifth of those eligible to vote. Now it seems most prospective leaders want a break with old- style Conservatism. They believe we must get on to the centre ground, whatever that may be, and offer Conservatism timeless, shoeless, feckless but touchy and feely. In short, they believe we should steal Labour's clothes.

That is demonstrably wrong. In 1951, Attlee lost an election with 13.9 million votes. In 1997, Labour gained only 13.5 million, from an electorate 10 million larger. After eight years in office, Labour's total fell to 9.5 million. After eight years in office, Margaret Thatcher's vote increased by 100,000 and in 1992, before they discovered that he was not Margaret Thatcher, the electors gave John Major 14.1 million, the highest ever Tory vote, after 13 years of Conservatism.

Labour's success in 2005 did not come from electoral appeal, but from the utter failure of the Conservative Party. Tony Blair's victory was gained with fewer votes than Major polled in the Labour landslide of 1997. Something began to go wrong with the Tory party in the 1990s, and it has got worse. Now only 15 per cent see us as relevant. When Labour and Tories stood on similar ground, the voters reluctantly, resignedly voted for the dog they knew over the one they didn't.

It is time the Tories asked themselves: "Other than providing jobs for politicians, what is the Conservative Party for?"

My answer is that the Conservative Party is a national unionist party. The English, Northern Irish, Scots and Welsh possess these islands as our national home and have the right to defend them against any who seek to occupy them or restrict our liberty. It is for us alone to decide who may be admitted. At the heart of Conservatism is the belief that, since man is born free, laws can only make him less so. "Human rights" legislation, for example, can only impose obligations.

Conservatives hold that people are sovereign. The state exists to serve the people, and is our agent in tasks we cannot undertake on our own behalf - ensuring the defence of the kingdom and our right to go about our lawful business. These, together with the provision of a currency and of civil and criminal law, are the defining aspects of government. Conservatives respect our right to enjoy the fruits of our creativity, in the form of property. Also, since society is a community with common traditions and institutions, it cannot embrace widely differing cultures. Hence there cannot be a multicultural society.

Our relationships with families and friends are as important as those with the state. All human experience shows the traditional family to be the most stable building block of society, and Tories therefore support economic and social policies favourable to it.

To maintain an orderly and prosperous society without excessive coercion, Conservatives believe individuals must be able to act in their perceived best interest, but be held responsible for the consequences. Those given responsibility will generally behave responsibly, whereas adults treated like children will behave like children.

It is on these understandings that a Conservative government should rule. It should regain the power to make our laws and to control who should be admitted here. That would mean a fundamental renegotiation of the structure of the EU or of our relationship with it. "Ever- closer union" should be repudiated, along with the supremacy of the European Court, and we should look to normal government-to- government treaties to conduct activities such as cross-border trade, pollution control and extradition.

An early exit from the European agricultural and fisheries policies, renewed sovereignty over our coastal waters and an end to the European Court's extra-territorial jurisdiction would be embraced, while withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights and the repeal of the Human Rights Act would restore the common sense position that foreign nationals do not enjoy the full protection of our law until they are lawfully admitted here.

The state should tax the minimum it needs for its obligations. We should sweep away the insanely complicated tax/credit/benefit system and minimise the number simultaneously paying tax and receiving benefits. The system should be rebalanced to favour, not penalise, conventional families. Business taxation and regulation would be simplified. Companies' compliance with the law would be judged by their actions, not the boxes ticked by compliance officers. Inheritance tax thresholds would be raised towards total abolition, and taxes on the income of the oldest would be progressively relieved.

A prime defect of both our health and education system is that funding flows down from ministers through bureaucratic systems. Hospitals and schools have to please politicians and officials, not patients, parents and pupils. We would make state hospitals independent, self-governing charitable foundations, financed by payments for the individual treatment. Schools would be financed through education vouchers. As hospitals became accountable to patients, and schools to parents, vast swaths of the health and education departments and of LEAs would fall away. An independent inspectorate would monitor school standards, with the redemption of vouchers conditional on the effective teaching of a core curriculum.

A prime objective would be the closer integration of populations. However, we would recognise that any faith preaching a moral doctrine would regard with distaste a demand to integrate into the degenerate society of many parts of Britain.

The "permissive" society of the 1960s has become a drunken, violent, yobbish society of schoolgirl mothers and schoolboy fathers. Government alone cannot remedy that, but it can influence the balance between discipline and freedom. Conservatives would not simply legislate in hope, but resource the justice system to enforce existing laws. We would not create new "thought crimes" or legislate against religious discrimination, but prosecute those "using words or behaviour likely to cause a breach of the peace".

A Tory administration would reject regional government and devolve power locally. It would re-establish Cabinet government, the independence of the Civil Service and the power of the Commons to challenge and oversee the executive. That would involve sweeping away the nonsense of a "nine-to-five" Commons. It would be a radical programme. It would take time to bear fruit. But that was true of the Thatcher government, on whose achievements our present prosperity is built. Now our problems are social, and in the organisation of public services. They need to be addressed with equal radicalism.

My assumptions about the state, and its relationship with the individual and society, are those on which Conservative policies must be based. They are the common ground of all Tories. Members of the Conservative Party who do not subscribe to them are in the wrong party.