Cranleigh’s VIth form politics students were delighted to host local MP, Anne Milton, at a talk on February 7th. Anne opened by discussing how she entered politics at a time when Conservative fortunes were particularly low during the dying days of the Major government.  As a woman and former nurse she was something of a rare Conservative animal in the early days of her political career.  Since squeaking a win in 2005 in this most marginal of constituencies her fortunes have risen with those of the Conservatives and she now finds herself as an Opposition Spokesperson on Health issues.  She is an ardent supporter of current leader, David Cameron, and harbours ambitions to serve as a minister in the first Conservative government of the 21st Century.

 

Anne was quizzed on a whole range of issues by an enthusiastic audience. A2 students, who study Conservatism as part of their Ideologies course, were particularly keen to pin her down on her own brand of Conservatism.  She admitted to being something of a pragmatist in this regard wanting to be tough on law and order whilst aiming to, ‘help out the bottom 20%.’  Eliza Sawyer and Tristan Abbott pursued her on this issue wanting to know how compatible these two principles were. How responsible are people for their own poverty?  Indeed, in light of Cameron’s much derided ‘Hug a Hoodie’ speech are there not occasions when we might at least understand why people turn to crime, even if we can’t condone it?

 

Anne was perhaps most interesting on the rethinking of the role of the state which is occurring under key Conservative thinkers such as Oliver Letwin and David Willetts.  Now that the traditional left-right analysis of politics is dead, she argued, this was the major division between Labour and the Conservatives. Labour favour a top-down interventionist model whereas the Conservatives want to reinvent the state, shrink it and leave much more up to individuals and communities.  This again prompted questions about how much one could safely rely on communities and the voluntary sector to look after those in need, but Anne was adamant that the state was nothing other than a ‘dead hand’ in such matters.

 

This was a stimulating evening for students who peppered their local MP with plenty more questions. The shooting and fishing brigade (represented by James Dear) were placated, and Chris Williams was relieved to hear that his representative had not suffered too much media intrusion to her private life.  Inevitably the issue of MPs’ pay and expenses came up too and Anne was clearly irritated with the relatively few MPs who have abused their privileges and reduced all MPs to be held in an unprecedentedly low level of public trust.