Cameron starts election campaign early

David Cameron fired the starting gun on the British general election campaign today, insisting he was the man to lead Britain to a brighter future.

Mr Cameron called for voters to make 2010 a “year of change”, pledging that a Tory government would unify the country and get the economy back on track.

Portraying himself as a consensus politician in contrast with Gordon Brown’s fondness for “dividing lines”, the Conservative leader also said opposition leaders would be invited to join a war cabinet on Afghanistan.

The comments, less than two days into the New Year, came in a speech in Oxfordshire that effectively marked the start of an election campaign that could last five months.

Mr Cameron struck a more positive note after his warnings last year that the country faces an era of economic “austerity”.

“If we win this year’s election Britain will be under new economic management,” he said.

“We will send out the loudest signal that this country is back open for business and ready for investment.

“Decline is not inevitable. Confidence can return. If we take action now – to get a grip on the public finances and unleash enterprise – Britain can have a bright economic future.”

Speaking at the Oxford School of Drama in Woodstock, against a backdrop of a picture of the Houses of Parliament with the slogan ‘Year for Change‘, he said: “It’s a brand new year. A new decade is fresh before us.

“This time always comes with a sense of hope. Hope that successes can be built upon, failures can be learned from, new ideas started, a new course charted.”

He insisted that a Conservative administration would “redistribute power from the political elite to the man and woman in the street”, with the “most radical decentralisation of power this country has seen for generations”.

Conservative strategists have identified Gordon Brown’s reputation as a tribal politician as a key weakness, and Mr Cameron sought to contrast his own record for working across parties to achieve results.

“Over the past four years, we have always tried to work with other parties rather than looking for political dividing lines where none exist,” he said.

“In that spirit of unity, of a greater purpose than the simple pursuit of politics, I have an announcement to make.

“We have said that from day one of a future Conservative Government, a national security council, with the key ministers and defence chiefs, will sit as a war cabinet.

“And I can announce today that if we win this year’s election, I will invite leaders of the main opposition parties to attend the war cabinet on a regular basis so they can offer their advice and insights.”

In a reference to Labour’s attempts to brand him as a “Tory toff”, Mr Cameron went on: “We can’t go on with an old-fashioned left-wing class war on aspiration from a government that has seen the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

“We can’t go on with the old style of politics that divides our country instead of uniting it.

“We can’t go on in these difficult times with a weak Prime Minister and a divided government.

“We can’t go on with another five years of Gordon Brown.”

Mr Cameron said the Tory election campaign would be running from today, and next week would see the first chapter of the party’s manifesto published.

But Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw hit back immediately, insisting that Labour was offering “change for the mainstream middle”.

He said his party was “helping families to keep their homes and jobs during the downturn, investing in education and apprenticeships, and helping people to get on – not just get by.

“It’s clear that 2010 will be a year of soundbites not substance from David Cameron, but no amount of expensive and slick PR can disguise the fact that the Conservatives would scrap your right to see a cancer specialist within two weeks and target tax cuts on the wealthiest few.”

Lib Dem frontbencher Danny Alexander said Mr Cameron needed to stop “simply parroting lines from spin doctors”.

“The Tories team up with climate change deniers in Europe, want tax cuts for the wealthy and are still not telling us the full story about their biggest donor’s tax bills,” he said.

“The electorate will judge David Cameron by his actions and will see that he only offers phoney change, not the real thing.”