Cameron’s compassion

I wondered when David Cameron would seek to spell out a more coherent vision for where he would like to take the nation under a Conservative government. Like Blair in the mid-90s the Tory leader has appeared content to play a waiting game, watching the government slowly implode. New Labour appeared like a direct continuation of Thatcherism to many and there was little on the surface to distinguish it in policy terms from the Conservatives - except perhaps the focus on modernising UK democracy in the shape of constitutional reform (which was in any case a hangover from the Kinnock/Smith days). As Blair rather than Major was the heir to Thatcher, Cameron has presented himself as the heir to Blair and put forward a case for saying that the Tories would be more competent stewards of the nation than Gordon Brown.

This week Cameron has gone on record as saying that the free market needs to be reformed.

First off he gave a speech atthe World Economic Forum in Davos where he tried to distance his party from the unregulated capitalism under Thatcher:

‘The Conservative leader said the public had lost faith in the form of capitalism that had developed over the past few years and culminated in the current crisis. “We’ve got a lot of capital but not many capitalists, and people rightly think that isn’t fair.

“So this is what too many people see when they look at capitalism today. Markets without morality. Globalisation without competition. And wealth without fairness. It all adds up to capitalism without a conscience and we’ve got to put it right.

“Business helping to create a society that is greener, safer, fairer - and where opportunity is more equal. Business helping to create a society that is more family-friendly, where responsibility and power are decentralised, and where we value and build up the institutions of the public realm and civic society.”’

See the Guardian

This theme is then developed in the Observer:

‘In an extraordinary email exchange with the Observer’s Will Hutton, Cameron offers the clearest picture yet of his philosophy of “compassionate conservatism,” rejecting “statism” as the way to fix the credit crisis, and instead promising to change the culture in which businesses operate.

Cameron said he has “a vision for the country that connects the economy, society and the environment, and which aims to bring a new sense of responsibility to all three”.

He says his new approach contrasts both with the “booster capitalism” of the past decade, but also, in a telling phrase that will infuriate the committed Thatcherites who still inhabit parts of the party, “it’s a change from the 1980s, when we rightly had the spirit of enterprise, but on which we now need to build the sense of responsibility”.’

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