… but it confuses the right-wing media, who want government out of our lives, but who also want to blame government for every crisis. At least I am not alone in spotting that Cameron is ahead of the game.
In rare moments of calm the focus switches from a troubled Government to a partially recovered Conservative Party. When it does so David Cameron’s admirers and critics tend to argue in unison that the Conservative leader should set out his political purpose more clearly, implying that he lacks a compelling or coherent narrative.
The criticism is both unfair and slightly odd. Whatever his failings, Cameron outlines in most speeches a vision that is potentially revolutionary in its implications, one that could at the very least transform the political culture in Britain and might bring about more sweeping changes.
Cameron envisages an extraordinary transfer of power away from the centre to local community groups, users of public services and to local government. Take a typical speech he delivered last month to the Young Foundation. Cameron began by arguing that a much greater degree of local control allows communities to apply solutions best suited to meet their needs. He added also that diversity works at a national level. Local innovation would allow others to copy the best.
The article is here.
Attended a CPS seminar today on Public Services in the Post Bureaucratic Age with quite a few members of the shadow cabinet, at which David Cameron made a short, sincere and entertaining speech. Michael Gove was, as ever, quite brilliant.
When this vision is applied at last and with audacity, I believe ordinary people will be delighted.