Cameron: I still care – Eton for all!
Some of David Cameron’s earliest speeches as party leader could be a bit muddled.
You could almost see the cut-out paragraphs shuffled from page to page leaving a disjointed shopping list with little sense of a developed argument. This one had a very clear argument – a bit like one of those later Tony Blair speeches when the Labour leader felt he’d worked out what he truly believed in.
In fact, there were sections you could easily imagine Tony Blair delivering (more independence for schools and tougher demands on welfare claimants), a thought some Cameronians would relish even if the right of the party wouldn’t.
But it comes at a time when David Cameron has just reshuffled his cabinet to the right.
He talked about sceptics who question the party’s commitment to international aid, but he’s just appointed such a sceptic to run the department.
He talked about compassionate conservatism but he’s removed the epitome of liberal conservatism at the justice department and brought in Chris (I want more people in prison) Grayling instead.
A taboo topic in the past
He talked about wielding the veto in Europe – not something Tony Blair would’ve contemplated and in the past a taboo topic when David Cameron was trying to wheen the Tories off Brussels-bashing.
The big points here though, after the stark warnings of Britain tipping into irrelevance, were that the Tories were pursuing compassionate, opportunuity-spreading policies in education and welfare.
He wanted everyone to have a bit of Eton – “I’m not here to defend privilege, I’m here to spread it.” It’s not “cruel” to compel the young unemployed to do work experience, it’s workless poverty that is cruel.
One after one, David Cameron picked up a Labour version of what Tories stand for and tried to knock it about and cast it off – Labour might be feeling flattered he paid such attention to their attacks.
The 50p tax? The poor suffer when a businessman emigrates.
More credibility for Ed Miliband?
He’s worried not only that Ed Miliband might be picking up more credibility than he once thought possible but also worried that the Lib Dems keep managing to define the Tories as the “cruel” lot in the coalition because Nick Clegg is portrayed as the man who wins the nice/softer/redistributive concessions in policy rows, extracted in return for the letting the Tories feather their rich friends’ nests or bash a claimant.
So this was a determined attempt to grab back the compassionate label David Cameron worked hard to try to win before coming to power while being true to Conservative instincts.
It was all a contrast to the Tory conference in Birmingham in 2010, just after the coalition was formed.
David Cameron’s team banished the word Conservative from the hall.
Mr Cameron was proclaimed as the leader of some kind of national emergency government.
The coalition’s virtues were proclaimed (he mentioned coalition specifically five times in his 2010 speech referring to the coalition’s “beating radical heart” and the coalition acting in the “national interest” ); today he managed one glancing reference in a section on Scottish independence.
One minor point: I don’t think the Queen would appreciate being invoked in a highly party political (the most party political) setting.
The words, the best head of state in the world, and the attempt to use her to get a clapline in a leader’s speech wouldn’t appeal to someone who prizes her position above politics as a unifying symbol for the nation.
The other line – “we even persuaded the Queen to jump out of a helicopter …” – seems to go against the Buckingham Palace line that the Queen readily agreed to the comedy turn when first proposed by the opening ceremony director.
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