Tories must reverse 'great socialist coup' of last decade, says Liam Fox Former defence secretary makes speech urging party to cut taxes and end ring-fencing of NHS and aid budgets Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 March 2013 13.00 GMT The Conservative party needs to reverse the "great socialist coup" of the last decade by ending welfare dependency and encouraging wealth creation by cutting taxes, the former defence secretary Liam Fox has argued. In an unashamedly Thatcherite call to arms, Fox called for an end to the ringfencing of Whitehall departments, which would lead to dramatic cuts in NHS spending. Calling for lower taxes, Fox said: "The great socialist coup of the last decade was making wealth an embarrassment. It is not. It is the prize for aspiration and hard work, and its side effects are higher tax revenues, more jobs and more investment." He said: "I believe that the country will be at its best when the government is small and people are left to enjoy the fruits of their own labour. I believe that in leaving money in people's pockets, economic activity will follow."People will buy houses, invest for their future or just go shopping. Whichever is the case, it is creating a society that is sustainable for the future in a way that our current â welfare dependent and debt ridden â economy is not." Fox lambasted Brown for a massive expansion of the welfare state. He said: "History will judge Gordon Brown and his disciples harshly. They spent with abandon, rolling out the socialist vision of a big state. But much worse; rather than diminishing the reliance that individuals have on the state, they purposely pushed the drug of welfare addiction to more and more people, ensnaring even the affluent middle classes. "As Margaret Thatcher so memorably put it â the one thing you can count on with a Labour government is that sooner or later they run out of other people's money. The trouble is, they have usually done a political bunk before the bills have to be paid, just as they have this time." http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/mar/11/tories-reverse-socialist-coup-liam-fox But Obama wants to repeat the failed experiment. WHY?