New policies return to 'Thatcher revolution'

It's well turned-out but not glossy. It's heavy on policy "objectives" but sketchy on detail. It is intended to be solid, not exciting.

In many ways, the Tories' new policy document, "Leadership with a purpose: a better society", is made in Iain Duncan Smith's own image. And from its very first words, a potted history of his stint as a soldier in Zimbabwe, it is clear that this is a publication which carries the Conservative leader's personal stamp on every page.

Some 45 pages long, with 25 new policy headlines and five broad ambitions for government, the document published yesterday is essentially a proto-manifesto that draws the battle lines for the next general election.

Built on the past year's intensive touring of Europe for new ideas, it undoubtedly meets the Central Office billing as an agenda for the "unfinished Thatcher revolution".

From giving parents £5,000 to spend on private education to encouraging people to opt out of the NHS through state top-ups, the aims hark unashamedly back to the Eighties, promising to apply the Thatcherite vigour that transformed the economy then to public service reform now.

Unlike his heroine, Mr Duncan Smith has picked up the "vulnerable" agenda, using her dreaded word "society" in the title of the document. But the underlying sentiment is unchanged, with an emphasis on self-help and voluntarism, and "the state" repeatedly used as a dirty word.

In his foreword, the Tory leader makes clear his strategy for this Parliament. As Labour fails to deliver on public services, despite the record amounts of investment, the Tories will offer non-state means of developing "world class" education and health services. "An education system in which no child is left behind, a health service in which no patient is left waiting, reversing the conveyor belt that draws young people into crime, an end to insecurity in old age, a society in which every person has a worthwhile part to play," he says.

As with this week's conference, no opportunity has been missed to use young women and people from ethnic minorities to underscore the new inclusive image. A twentysomething, Iona Tucker, features on the frontispiece with the quote "I'd like to know what the Conservatives think they could do. Yeah, that would be interesting."

"Leadership with a Purpose" doesn't fall into some of the traps of William Hague's own mini-manifesto, "Believing in Britain". That document included the much-ridiculed, and later ditched, plans to cut public spending over a Parliament regardless of the economic cycle.

But although it doesn't contain any howlers, and in some areas proposes policies that Labour would like to steal, Mr Duncan Smith still faces the charge that many proposals are either too unspecific or open to the damaging Labour charge of "privatisation".

Promising to scrap AS-levels in the wake of the regrading crisis sounds attractive, although the party is silent on whether a baccalaureate should replace A-levels. Similarly, extending the right to buy to 1.3 million housing association tenants and using the proceeds to build new homes could be popular, although there are reservations about where they would be built.

The two most radical proposals, creating state scholarships for independent schools and giving a Government top-up to those opting out of the NHS, are brave if risky.

The document is not meant to be a full manifesto, more a "direction of travel", as Mr Duncan Smith calls it. Nevertheless, one of its biggest flaws is its silence on the economy, particularly on the thorny question of public spending and taxation.

For most Tories, the sense of relief at seeing some detailed policies was palpable this week. But whether the public will accept or embrace the unfinished Thatcher revolution remains to be seen.

The Tories' 25 fresh ideas

* Scrap AS-levels

* Replace Qualifications and Curriculum Authority with an independent body such as the Bank of England

* Allow home-school contracts to be a condition of admission

* Allow schools final say over exclusion of disruptive pupils

* Give schools independence over budgets and policies

* Establish state scholarships to create a new type of school

* Introduce charges for abuse of the National Health Service

* Otherwise, no extension of charging in the NHS

* Foundation hospitals to have similar freedom to those in Spain

* Recognise the benefit to the NHS of people contributing from their own funds

* Introduce parenting classes for parents of disruptive children

* Impose longer, more constructive sentences for persistent young offenders

* Drug treatment for all minors on heroin and cocaine

* Introduce New York-style neighbourhood policing

* Lifetime Savings Accounts

* Oppose Labour's suspension of right-to-buy for council tenants

* Extend right-to-buy for Housing Association tenants

* Invest the proceeds in building new social housing

* Voluntary Society Bill in first Queen's Speech

* Give voluntary organisations the ability to take on government work

* Reduced regulation for care homes

* Recognise people who look after elderly relatives in their own homes

* Allow people to provide for reasonable long-term care costs

* Reduced means-testing for pensioners: pay more income as of right

* Give pensioners the right to choose whether or not to take out an annuity.