Conservatives – Path to Power

The Telegraph has today kicked off Path to Power, a week-long series on the Conservatives. We start with the revelation that the leadership are drawing up plans to rein in the generous pension arrangements for the top end of the public sector. The target is not the streetsweeper, but the NHS consultant who retires early on a full pension and is then rehired by the health service. You can tell it’s an idea whose time has come: the Labour chairman of the work and pensions select committee has endorsed it on the Today programme. In fact Terry Rooney says public sector pensions should be capped at £50,000. Andrew Porter has all the details, while George Osborne predicts Gordon Brown will use the G20 as cover for ever higher public spending.

To set the scene for what will be a week-long look at a party that claims to be a government-in-waiting, the historian Anthony Seldon explores the challenges ahead for David Cameron if he is to join the pantheon of great Conservative leaders. We hope Path to Power will help answer the only question that matters: what do I get if I vote Conservative?