David Cameron’s keynote speech was very well presented. He is good at communicating his brand of Liberal Conservatism and making it appear that he’s a conviction politician and not someone who relies heavily on focus groups, PR and spin to form policy.

Cameron said that he wants to raise the tax allowance from £10,500 to £12,500 and no tax on minimum wage if you work 30 hours a week. Ukip has proposed scrapping income tax for workers on the minimum wage. Cameron wants the 40p tax threshold to be increased to £50,000, and Ukip has said it would cut income tax from 40p to 35p for people earning up to £55,000.

Cameron talked of the Conservatives being the party of aspiration, but the Tories have consistently refused to support grammar schools and social mobility is decreasing.

Dave has promised to renegotiate free movement laws but in order to do that he would need a treaty change and I doubt that any such negotiations would be successful with EU Qualified Majority Voting rules. Free movement is a founding principle and Germany has stated that free movement laws are non negotiable.

Ukip is often called “racist” but in my opinion Ukip have the fairest immigration policies. Under Labour and the Tories, Europeans are favoured over non EU citizens. So a highly skilled Nigerian engineer could face difficulty whereas an unskilled Romanian would have free movement. Also a British citizen who wishes to marry an Australian might have difficulty due to visa laws, but EU citizens won’t face any such problems. EU citizens are favoured over countries in the Angloshphere and Commonwealth.

The proposals on human trafficking are interesting but surely open borders must make it much harder to police. A Mirror newspaper investigation revealed shocking details of girls bought in Romania and sold as prostitutes in Britain.

Cameron talked of a British Bill of Rights and protecting the British way of life, but he supports the European arrest warrant which undermines habeas corpus. The treatment of Ashya King’s parents shows just how problematic the EAW is and how it can easily be misused to create an injustice.

David Cameron says that he supports the NHS but in my opinion an NHS cannot exist with open borders. Open borders make it difficult to plan and services become overstretched. Open borders also reduce trust and people are less willing to participate in socialised programs within such societies.

Cameron said that he thinks Britain is great and the Tories have the policies to make Britain a leading nation. But Cameron wants to stay in the EU with powers handed to unelected bureaucrats who will dictate policy. Obviously he can’t have that much faith in the British people if he thinks that we should be ruled by remote bureaucrats in Brussels.

Cameron talked about terrorism and the need to take a strong stand against ISIS and British citizens who travel to Syria and Iraq to fight for ISIS. He talked of using powers to remove passports and prevent British citizens who fight for ISIS from retuning. This sounded very much like Nigel Farage’s recent policy announcement. Nigel said that any British citizens who travel to Syria should be stripped of their British citizenship.

David Cameron talked very passionately about the need to defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq and how failure to confront them would result in terror on British streets. However Cameron failed to make any mention of the Islamists running amok in Libya.

A large number of Jihadists from Libya fought in Afghanistan and Iraq during the 2nd Iraq war. Cameron declared mission accomplished in Libya but it’s now a failed state and Rand Paul recently called it a “Jihadi Wonderland”. Arms from Libya have been funnelled to Syria and Iraq and also throughout North and West Africa. The Libya mess is destabilising North and West Africa and Cameron said nothing about the chaos he helped to unleash.

Libya is very close to Europe and is a major departure point for migrants attempting to enter Europe illegally. The chaos has resulted in an increase in illegal crossing and some of those crossing could be Jihadists. Before the intervention Libyans had free electricity, all newlyweds in Libya received $60,000 Dinar (US$ 50,000) from the government to buy their first apartment and to help start a family, education and medical treatments were free, and women had equal rights. Gaddafi was a dictator but he was one of the few who spent oil wealth on the people. Libya is now a failed state and Jihadists connected to Al Qaeda are running amok.

Libya, Syria and Iraq are all connected. Liberal interventionists must accept that some Muslims might not want a liberal Western style democracy, EU authoritarianism or a US style constitution, and freedom to some Muslims might be the right to practice Sharia law in an Islamic state. Christians in the Middle East who have helped facilitate more secular regimes have been the greatest victims of the Western interventions, which is ironic given that Britain and America are Christian countries. Christianity in the Middle East is slowly being wiped out by ISIS and I fear that this will result in more brutal and vicious regimes.

As usual David Cameron presented his policies very well but his speech lacked substance and it’s more than likely that he will be unable to fulfil a number of his promises, especially the ones on EU reform. Further, a number of Cameron’s proposals sounded very much like Ukip’s recent policy announcements, and it showed Ukip once again setting the agenda by putting forward radical and practical solutions on how to make work pay for those on minimum wage, proposals to help the squeezed middle, and all who favour personal responsibility over government dependency.