A country is at its best when the bonds between people are strong and when the sense of national purpose is clear. Today the challenges facing Britain are immense. Our economy is overwhelmed by debt, our social fabric is frayed and our political system has betrayed the people. But these problems can be overcome if we pull together and work together. If we remember that we are all in this together.

Ahead of the launch of Labour’s 2010 manifesto, a new analysis of their 2005 manifesto shows that they have broken no fewer than 102 promises, including: • ‘Full employment in every region and nation’ • ‘A 20 per cent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions on 1990 levels by 2010’ • ‘We will end child poverty, starting by halving it ... by 2010-11’ • ‘Everyone up to the age of 19 should be learning’ • ‘All women will have choice over where and how they have their baby’ • ‘[Home ownership] to have risen by another million to two million’

There are two ways to respond to a problem. You can simply clear up the mess as best you can, or you can also work out why the problem happened in the first place – and take steps to stop it from happening again. Across our policy plans, we have chosen the common sense of the second option. It is our aim to treat the causes of our national problems as well as their symptoms. In our economy that means not just dealing with our debts, but setting up an Office of Budget Responsibility to help keep

Conservatives are committed to working with front-line NHS professionals to deliver world class healthcare for people. We want to transform NHS dentistry, from a service currently in seemingly terminal decline to one people can trust, and which delivers high standards of care to everyone who needs it. Labour’s approach to micro-managing the NHS has been especially damaging for dentistry. Bureaucratic changes in 2006 severed the patient-dentist relationship by stopping people registering with local practices, instead contracting dentists to

Improving the NHS is the Conservative Party’s number one priority. We want the NHS to succeed today and in the future, and believe that this requires an end to the pointless upheavals, politically-motivated cuts, increased bureaucracy and greater centralisation that have taken place under Labour. That is why we have brought forward this NHS Autonomy and Accountability White Paper.

Government has been far too profligate for too long. Billions are wasted each year on pointless bureaucracy and failed projects that do nothing to improve the lives of the taxpayers who foot the bill. The explosion of unaccountable quangos, public sector ‘non-jobs’ and costly bureaucracy is an indictment of Labour’s reckless approach to spending other people’s money. We understand that people want government to be more effective in what it does, and to do it for less money. That means transforming the way the state goes about its business,

No one can doubt that our political system is broken. Millions of people in this country are at best detached from democracy, at worst angrily disillusioned. Putting this down to the expenses scandal alone would be a great mistake. MPs’ expenses might have been the trigger for the public’s anger, but this political crisis is driven by a deeper sense of frustration – people’s frustration that they have too little control over the decisions that affect their daily lives. This lack of power and control was barely tolerable when times were good. But