Cameron's Cognitive Dissonance

Monday, 15th August 2011

The best parts of David Cameron's speech this morning were those passages spent defending the government's plans for police reform and secondary education in England. This should not be a surprise: whether you agree with them or not, these are relatively coherent policies that have enjoyed the benefit of long gestation.

The rest of the speech, alas, was a humdrum tour of long-familiar bromides (families are good!), items pulled from discount bins ('elf and safety!) and impossible promises just vague enough to escape obvious ridicule ("a clear ambition that within the lifetime of this Parliament we will turn around the lives of the 120,000 most troubled families in the country").

Perhaps it has to be this way. Or rather, perhaps we shouldn't have expected his speech to be better - that is, more specific - than it was. Social responsibility is a perfectly good theme (though interestingly the words "Big Society" never passed the Prime Minister's lips) but it is, perhaps unavoidably, something easy to favour but harder to incubate.

Then there was this apparent contradiction:

Government cannot legislate to change behaviour, but it is wrong to think the State is a bystander.

[...] More than that, we’ve got to get out there and make a positive difference to the way families work, the way people bring up their children and we’ve got to be less sensitive to the charge that this is about interfering or nannying.

[...] We need a sense of social responsibility at the heart of every community. Yet the truth is that for too long the big bossy bureaucratic state has drained it away.

So which is it? Good nanny or Bad, bossy bureaucrat? (And aren't nanies also always bossy?) Answer: it kind of depends. Sometimes a little of this and sometimes a little of that but never too much of anything, thank you. That's a perfectly reasonable position for a One-Nation Tory paternalist to take, even if, by necessity and inclination, it lacks a certain clarity. It means that Nudging (and Shoving) is back on the agenda, even if that once-trendy notion was also left unmentioned.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister indulged his appetite for empty, Blairish slogans with this grim triple-whammy diagnosis of the problems facing Britain:

Crime without punishment. Rights without responsibilities. Communities without control.

Fair enough. But one could easily counter this with the valid observation that, actually, the reverse if often also true: Punishment without crime (eg, many drug offences), Responsibilities (to the state) without rights (to decent government-run services), Control without communities (because, in part, of government-sponsored dependency).

So there's that too.

Filed under: Britain (738 more articles) , Cameron (227 more articles) , ConLib (132 more articles) , Crime (260 more articles) , Tories (273 more articles)

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escapedRoger

August 15th, 2011 1:56pm Report this comment

All we need to know: he likes Tuscany more than the Cotswolds, lots more than Notting Hill. Goodbye.

REPay

August 15th, 2011 2:09pm Report this comment

I fear that the PM is now a hostage to fortune. The PR-instinct that something must be done or spun is classic heir to Blair syndrome. Heseltine was right today when he asked "where are the interviews with local leaders?" The PM can't look to own all these problems!

Mrs M L Bonwick-Jones

August 15th, 2011 2:11pm Report this comment

Very unfair statement regardless of what he said or how he said it David Cameron has had wish to put things right for a very long time a path he started on whilst ed miliband was happily stalking his older brother! he also has the problem of the Lib Dems to try and hold him back, i should also point out that David Cameron started on this path at a time when the rich became richer and the poor became poorer more so then at any other time in recent history including under conservative goverments, and unlike Ed miliband he didnot endulge in a spot of cheap political point scoring,things got a lot worse under the last Labour throw money at problems and egnore the real issue goverment. he answered all the questions given to him as fully as possible, no Tony Blair grinning and he spoke truthfully! If you wish to complain about a speech how about Ed Milibands Speech
he had no answers just more questions given by a specially selected audience, the questions were also set and where were the press- all in witney i suppose! also Why was he not in Doncaster?
Just be glad that David Cameron can speak in a calm way instead of an attack dog with angry tribalistic issues, jeolousy and a lack of respect are very ugly things! and the hug a hoodie remark was made by Labour David Cameron never made that remark he just said there needs to be a better understanding of young people and Labour were not interested.