First Annual Dinner a great success

Stephen Metcalfe, Prospective Conservative Member of Parliament, was delighted to welcome Iain Duncan Smith MP to the first Annual Dinner of the newly formed South Basildon and East Thurrock Conservative Association held at the newly built Orsett Hall Pavilion.

Former leader of the Conservative Party and founder of the Centre For Social Justice, The Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP spoke to over 220 people at the dinner outlining the Conservative Party’s vision for the future.

Iain spoke with great passion and knowledge about the problems our great country faces.

He identified how many of the problems we have in society are actually symptom of the same root cause - social exclusion. Family breakdown can lead to anti-social behaviour that can lead to crime. Crime often leads to drugs and drugs often lead to crime both of which can often lead to prison, and prison is more often than not a cause of family breakdown.

Iain spoke of how we need to break the cycle and to give people opportunities to set themselves free.

We must not be soft on drugs, but we must recognise that until we break the link between drugs and crime we can not achieve what we all want – a safer, securer society.

Stephen Commented: "The message that Iain put across is that we all have to work together. We need to not only protect and preserve all that we hold dear in our great country we also need to find ways to improve our Country for all its citizens. We need to create a fair and just society that put the family first and supports people in an ever more challenging and demanding world.”

He continued: "The first annual dinner was a huge success which I hope will only be increased in years to come and I am very grateful to Iain Duncan Smith for giving us so much of his time. A great deal of the policies and thinking of what we have as Conservatives today can be attributed to the immense work put in to our party by Iain. Iain’s Centre for Social Justice and his work with the Conservative Policy Review team has been widely recognised as having put poverty and social exclusion back at the top of the political Agenda.”

“I am extremely proud to be part of the social ideology and thinking of today's Conservative party, much of which can be attributed to it's former leader, Iain Duncan Smith."

Posted 3/12/07

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