Spot the Difference
by Duncan O'Leary
The challenge that Cameron set himself, I think, was the right one:
�Having defined ourselves for many years as the anti-socialist Party, how were we to define ourselves once full-blooded socialism had disappeared from the political landscape?�
The question was in the past tense, but it clearly looms behind the policy reviews that Cameron has set in train. Yesterday Cameron signalled his intention to move away from �one dimensional thinking� and �easy answers� � and it will be interesting to see what this means in practice. Will it always mean a smaller state, or rather a reshaping of the state to the areas where it can add most value?
And this I think, leads to where the real dividing line between New Labour and the Tories will be drawn. Here are two quotes � one from Cameron yesterday and one from Gordon Brown at the end of last year which I think make the point:
Cameron:
Some, from the left, have argued that trusting people and sharing responsibility means leaving people to look after themselves. They seem to deny the huge role that businesses, social enterprises, voluntary organisations, individuals and families can play in building a stronger society.
The purpose of the policy review process we have established is precisely to establish clear borders of responsibility, by working out what is best done by the state, what is best done by civil society and what is best done by the individual. But, in seeking that balance, we start with an instinctive desire to put more trust in civil society and in the individual, rather than in the bureaucratic apparatus of the state.
Brown:
Charities can and do achieve great transformative changes, but no matter how benevolent, they cannot, ultimately, guarantee fairness to all. Markets can and do generate great wealth, but no matter how dynamic, they cannot guarantee fairness to all. Individuals can be and are very generous but by its nature personal giving is sporadic and often conditional.
So fairness can be advanced by but cannot, in the end, be guaranteed by charities, however benevolent, by markets, however dynamic, or by individuals, however well meaning, but guaranteed only by enabling government.
Politics in a strange period at the moment, but I think the debate is only just beginning.