Shropshire Star

Shropshire MP Owen Paterson issues election warning to David Cameron

Prime Minister David Cameron could lose the next election unless he adopts "genuinely Conservative policies", North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson has warned.

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The former Environment Secretary, who lost his place in the Cabinet in the recent reshuffle at Downing Street, warned Mr Cameron needed to quickly adopt "robust, genuinely Conservative policies" or risk the "criminal failure" of handing power to Labour and Ed Miliband.

Mr Paterson, considered a key voice on the Tory right wing and among Eurosceptics in the party, also vowed he "would not go away" and pledged to carry on expressing his opinions.

The North Shropshire MP said Mr Cameron had less than two months to turn around Tory fortunes and was in a race against time to convince voters about the party's economic arguments.

Mr Paterson said: "There is a rule – whoever is ahead with six months to go will normally win. You cannot fatten the pig on market day.

"We should be making the bold statement that free markets provide employment, and they generate wealth which delivers taxes which deliver public services.

"We have begun to control public spending. We have begun to control the deficit. But we are still borrowing far too much and we are still taxing people far too much.

"I would like every citizen to go into the voting booth knowing if they vote Conservative they know they can be absolutely guaranteed they can trust the Tory party to reduce the tax burden."

Mr Paterson said he was planning to make several speeches at the upcoming Tory party conference.

"The message is I am not going away," he said.

"I've had a huge number of letters of support. I represent a clear strand of opinion in the Tory party and I intend to keep expressing that in a constructive manner."

David Cameron has insisted his plan to link further Scottish devolution to the process of making sure only English MPs can vote on English laws is necessary – as North Shropshire MP Owen Paterson today led criticism of the Prime Minister's handling of the referendum.

Mr Paterson claimed Mr Cameron did not consult his cabinet about key details of the Scottish independence referendum, including the question on the ballot paper and the timing of the vote.

He said there was no discussion about the referendum by members of the cabinet until after former SNP leader Alex Salmond had been allowed to set the referendum question.

He added that Mr Cameron should have consulted MPs or grassroots Tories before agreeing to offer Scotland new tax-raising powers as part of the "Devo Max" proposal.

Mr Cameron today said there was a "basic unfairness" in Britain's constitution which allowed Scottish MPs to vote on English matters, but not the other way around.

He called on Labour leader Ed Miliband to either work together with him or explain to the people of the UK why he would not tackle the "fundamentally unjust" situation which means Scottish MPs can vote on laws which do not apply to their constituents.

The move came after former prime minister Gordon Brown insisted he would make sure Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg stick to the proposed timetable for setting out future powers for Scotland. Mr Paterson said: "I have talked to two cabinet ministers, one of them still serving, as to whether the detail of this referendum was discussed in cabinet and I don't remember it being so."

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