Malcolm Rifkind: 'Winning back the centre ground is a necessity'

The Conservative Party has begun its debate about how to take forward its renaissance and win the support of the people of Britain. We have begun that debate but we must be careful that it is the right debate.

The reality is that winning back the centre ground is not an option, but a necessity for the Conservative Party.

The state of the nation does not make it difficult to identify some of the priorities for the modern Conservative Party. Firstly, we need to be a radical, liberating Conservative Party. Conservatives are not reactionary defenders of the status quo. Secondly, we must use the next two years to win the hearts and minds of thinking Britain. We must take that battle to the universities, to the think-tanks, and to the academic world. We must convince those who think of themselves as liberal and forward looking that they have more in common with us than with the arid, centralising, bureaucratic preoccupations of Gordon Brown and his ilk.

Thirdly, while choice in health or education must be a fundamental part of our policy, we need to recognise it as a means to ensure quality and not as an end in itself. We have not yet demonstrated how choice will be meaningful for the millions of people who live with poorly performing schools and inadequate hospitals. Finally, we need to champion tax reform. But here too we need to do far more work before we can demonstrate that such reform will be fair, equitable and do more good than harm.

I turn now to the priorities of the Britain of our dreams. We need to be, and to be seen to be, proactive in the defence of the liberties of the citizen. These matters can no longer be seen as part of the armoury of the left. In the modern context this is not just about Identity Cards, which we will, rightly, oppose. The onslaught on trial by jury, the desire to imprison people without trial or due process of law, the constant pressure by government ministers about how people should live their lives, the diminution of privacy, are all changing the nature of this country. Each might be defended in isolation. Cumulatively they are a real threat.