Via David Cameron: We can’t go on like this:
A decade of big government and blunt, bureaucratic control has undermined responsibility and made our social problems worse, not better.
We are determined to forge a new direction.
We will use the state to help remake society by encouraging people to take responsibility for themselves and for one another.
We will provide new opportunities for community groups, neighbourhood organisations, charities, social enterprises to help rebuild our civil society.
We will create incentives and use the best technology to encourage and enable people to come together, solve their problems together, make this society stronger together.
As we do this we will redistribute power from the political elite to the man and woman in the street.
Within months of a Conservative victory there would start the most radical decentralisation of power this country has seen for generations.
Government will enter a new era of transparency.
And a strong, unbroken line of democratic accountability will be restored between the people and those that make the decisions that affect their lives.
It is a future barely recognisable from the present, but this party is determined to take us there.
A Conservative Government will send the clearest possible signal to everyone in Britain…
…if you take responsibility, we will back you; if you aspire to a better life for you and your family, we will support you; if you play your part in building the big society, we will reward you.
I recommend the entire speech.
