Cameron's capitalism

Nickle

What about preditory statism?

Such as 225,000 pounds of government debt per taxpayer.

Ah yes, we don't want to talk about our mistakes, so lets attack someone else as a distraction.

Sir Everard Digby

So, Cameron is saying that interfering politicians are part of the problem and a big part. Is he proposing de-regulation or more interference?

The less contact with the state legislature,the better.That's where the dead hand is applied.

Dan Grover

Sounds nice. But like you said, unless he can strongarm George (who I suspect is rather on board but has to deal with the realities of it in a way that Cameron doesn't) into actually altering our policy to be coherent with this view, it's little more than rhetoric.

Rhoda Klapp

He cannot deliver less regulation. He cannot deliver stasis in regulation. He cannot stem the flow of regulation from the EU which does not even go near parliament, he cannot prevent the courts from interpreting regulation as they like.

He can, however, make speeches about it. And having made the speech, like his predecessor Mr Blair, he thinks he has finished. Done what was required. It really will not do. How about some action? Or will that require the agreement of the business minister, at least. Who is that again?

PayDirt

Maybe you are confusing the market economy with Capitalism? You managed to talk about Capitalism without mentioned who owns the etc etc.

Andy H

Good speech or bad speech, I am a firm believer of actions speak louder then words.

WHEN will Cameron start to deliver?

My vote is completely remove Employers NI and make it more affordable to employ people, and limited out of work benefits to encourage people back into work.

Bob Dixon

Blimey,Now we have it. Does this mean Blair & Brown can be put into the Tower of London to await Her Majesty's pleasure.

niav

I am hugely annoyed by the sheer hypocrisy of Cameron.

Not only the 50% tax is here to stay (in fact, more like 60%) once you take into account the NI. Look at the ripoff rate to capital gains on shares.

Everything this person has done has been anti-business. If you think the business tax rate cut would result in a effective reduction of tax paid, you paid no attention to changes in investment allowances - I recommend reading the PwC worldwide study on effective tax rates, just to see what this government is doing to business.

This character is shamessly promoting a open culture of looting higher earners and productive people. He calls it "fairness".

I'm not sure what kind of entrepreneurs would buy into his shameless lies - the stupid ones, surely. And those won't invent any Google.

Ian Walker

"Cameron says different. ‘I believe that open markets and free enterprise are the best imaginable force for improving human wealth and happiness. They are the engine of progress, generating the enterprise and innovation that lifts people out of poverty and gives people opportunity.’ "

And that is why he gets my vote.

Austin Barry

To avoid the EU’s absurd tsunami of pointless, anally-retentive, anti-business regulation we should abandon the listing, Costa Packet monument to Germany’s genocidal guilt, and head for the blue water of regulatory, fiscal and political autonomy.

Cue some Elgar.)

Jeremy

Fraser Nelson:

"Cameron says...that what’s needed more are virtues that people, not governments, possess: ‘Intelligence; ingenuity; energy; guts...’"

Not much good if every time somebody shows some intelligence, ingenuity, energy and guts they are promptly arrested by the Americans through the open door of the Extradition Act - and with the supine collusion of the British government.

"...and the state can only do so much..."

Well it could make a good start by simply protecting the basic rights and freedoms of the British people.

michael

Same old story .... 30 years ago it was demonic directors. Having been politically legislated out of management MD's have become invisible so the new toxic scape goat is the CEO.
What's the next name for the 'big bad fat cat boss'?

Q. And why do failures get such big pay off's?
A. Responsible capitalism ... It's nigh impossible (i.e. a damned sight more time and money) to sack em.

eh-up.

strapworld

Yesterdays speech. Most likely in the shredder by now Mr Nelson.

Tell me please how many speeches has our PR Prime Minister made and how many have been acted upon?

Or am I correct in believing that it is all just words?

ROJ

"Much rot is spoken about capitalism. .... it is simply the name given to the system where people trade with each other the world over." Well, another name for that is market economy, and when someone begins by referring to the market economy as "capitalism" it's more likely than not that what follows will be rot.

Pitman

A thoughtful article, with some excellent conclusions. I do however find it iritating that commentators frequently refer to Darlings plans to halve the defecit in four years. He reckoned without a collapse of the Eurozone economies and with earlier US growth. If his plans were modeled onto the current economic climate we would find his timtable had extended significantly. Nonetheless the articles gives the lie to those who somehow think that a trading nation can pull up the drawbridge and live in a cosy bubble!

mattghg

Typo:

'Cameron pointed out, the issue was wrong-touch regulation, not right-touch regulation'

Presumably you mean 'not light-touch regulation'.

kevin

This Government are all capitalists, All they think about is How they can make cuts, They haven't any morals there planning to take money from the sick and disabled for gods sake what next kids piggy banks and for what so they can cut taxes for the rich company owners, All these savings will end up in rich peoples banks and will create more jobless as more shops close.

JohnPage

All Cameron's trying to do is neutralise the contributions to this topic of Miliband & Clegg. A hymn to entrepreneurship from a former TV company spin doctor? Oh please.

So these words written for him have a political purpose, but have no effect in the real world. Deregulation? Dream on.

It's sad to see Fraser duped by such tawdry spin.

Heartless Curmudgeon

Cameron's capitalism . . . is, like much else about the guy, a complete sham.

And PLEASE, - avoid portraying him against our National Flag. It is an affront.

MilkSnatcher

I find myself agreeing with every comment here: Cameron cannot actually do anything because to do something positive for the entrepreneurial class in this country will immediately be branded "unfair" by the Guardian, the BBC, the LibDems, the Unions (oh one and the same: can we have a collective noun for that lot - Rhoda how about it?) and result in a droop at one apex of his cherished triangle. How about getting HMRC off the backs of new business by being able to strike a 5-year tax deal, like in NL, which is only a 40 minute flight away (and only 3 hours from Birmingham with HS2.....)

Publius

"Much rot is spoken about capitalism. It is not an ideology, there is no rule book you can tweak: it is simply the name given to the system where people trade with each other the world over."

Quite frankly, Mr Nelson, this is twaddle. Merely glossing over distinctions and eliding ideas reduces your analysis to lazy sloganeering. Fine for some Telegraph puff-piece perhaps, but an insult to intelligent readers.

daniel maris

He's turning the country into a nation of princes and paupers. He's selling the seed corn to the Chinese. And he is allowing mass immigration to destabilise our society.

Fail, fail, fail.

Fatbloke on tour

Trevor

The SpeccyLand economics fairy tale factory must be working overtime.

Good to see the ZH article you push is big on Canadian banks and their precarious financial health due to some of the crap they are holding.

Their time will come.
You on the other hand are doing punditry by numbers.

Bickers

More PR blatherings from Cameron. Surely, he must by now know that our problems can be traced to Government (all levels in the UK & EU)
If Cameron wants growth then he needs to start by demolishing large parts of the State and all the red tape that's strangling business. If that means leaving the EU, sacking tens of thousands of non productive public sector 'managers' and scrapping the blood sucking, anti business, barking mad Climate Change Act then so be it; just get on with it before the UK reaches the point of no return. Business will do the rest.

It's not rocket science!!

Trapped

And all the while in the background the bank of England continues to loan banks money in the form of liquidity easing at rates that the ordinary customer will never see. If you want to start responsible Capitalism, the first thing to do is to make the banks responsible for their own failures, which Labour should have done, instead we had a privitasation of the profits and a socialisation of the debt. Nothing new from Cameron on this one.

Bill W

The prospect of reinstating my cancelled subscription to The Spectator fades ever further into the gloom.

This organ is now just propaganda. As is the DT. Engaging with either of them is futile.

Rhoda Klapp

1. OK, I've had my usual moan, thanks to the CH for the sounding board. Now I'm going to come at it from another direction. Is Cameron unable to act, unwilling to act, or trying to act and being frustrated by friction and stodge? I've always thought unwilling, and occasionally unable too. It must be hard, when everything you try is squashed by the unimaginative useless bastards on all sides, when every initiative is misinterpreted and misrepresented by your opponents in the cabinet and the media (what, there is an opposition too? Well, well). But what is the result?

Rhoda Klapp

2. Nothing gets done. Nothing changes. You are trying to survive from week to week, just to keep in power. You think it is a victory when you can stay out of trouble for a day or two. But at the end of it all, are you having any fun? Are you getting any satisfaction? I can't see how. And when you finally have to put it up to the people, what are they going to make of your failure to deliver anything you said you would (and they WILL be able to penetrate the spin of making the record look decent, and any twisted cherry-picked statisitic you drag out)?

Rhoda Klapp

3.
Well, you are going to lose the election. Losing is awful, you'll lose the leadership too, you'll lose the limo and the keys to Chequers and have to make do with the fortune they all seem to make. But winning? You keep the baubles, but you have to suffer the job again. 24/7 placating moaners and pundits. Some prize.

Rhoda Klapp

So, either way, the reward for not doing anything is failure and the censure of history. No amount of speeches will ever get anything done. So act. Doesn't matter who you offend, this is the only way to succeed. Doesn't matter if you don't follow anybody's script, action is needed. We are in schtuck, and more of the same will not fix it. Act. If anybody on your side won't go along, fire them. If the lib-dems won't play, ditch 'em, and go it alone. If the BBC and the Guardian readers throw up their hands, go on the telly direct to the people and tell them the truth. Whether it all works or it doesn't, it's something. Not just drifting along down the river with our future.

DavidDP

"looting higher earners and productive people"

We've a huge deficit to pay off, mainly caused by those higher earners and "productive people" (both politicians and financiers).

Better they pay a bit more than place the burden on the rest of us hard working schmoes for whom having to pay higher taxes makes more of an appreciable effect on our disposable income.

George Shepherd

C'mon Fraser get a grip

Cameron's guff about moral Capitalism was designed to negate Red Ed's similar load of guff on the same subject

Job done - strategic stalemate - item ticked off on the grid for this week

On to next week's topic

TomTom

Capitalism requires CAPITAL. Just go around Northern towns and see how shabby a lot of industrial units are, retail units, and manufacturing sites - shortage of capital to make them grow. Yet CAPITAL is poured into the black hole of Banks who hoard it and engage in Extortion with anyone who wants to build a business as oppose to houses.

This is the Quick Buck Society for fast easy money rather than patient building of real business. Cameron doesn't care about real businesses, he is another coupon-clipper who thinks business is only about rewards not effort.

Britain is a Socialist Republic with Work taxed and Indolence rewarded and index-linked with the best pay and job security in the upper echelons of the public sector. It has NEVER been so rewarding to work for The State

Jeff J

Rhoda, I practically worship the electronic ground you walk on and I know what you're trying to do but you're making the mistake of assuming that he has got an idea in his head. The man is an empty suit and destined to be a footnote in history.

His judgement stinks and I've stopped counting the bad calls he has made; some of them have damaged the fabric of this country. The collapse of morale in the Armed Forces and Police being prime examples.

The less he does the better as far as I am concerned.

Andy H

@ Rhoda

You have nailed the situation precisely.
How will history judge say Maggie and Blair.
You may not have agreed with her, or liked her, but Maggie acted.

Blair was always trying to pretend everything was all ok and did nothing (apart from spending all the money).

Will they ever make a film about Blair?
If they do, it will end up with him being shot.

niav

"We've a huge deficit to pay off, mainly caused by those higher earners and "productive people" (both politicians and financiers)."

Politicians, productive? At what? Lies and expense claims?

Why is the government taxing to death, you know, engineers and doctors? Small business owners? Did they produce the deficit, really?

This country punishes the hard-working and the entrepreneurial through confiscatory taxation, and savers though currency debasement. The productive get to pay 50-60% income taxes, then council taxes, then road taxes and fuel duty taxes, TV taxes, inheritance taxes, 20% VAT, and more taxes.

And Mr. Cameron's administration only made things worse, to the benefit of the usual suspects: politicians - who get to play with more and more public money, public sector parasites, welfare spongers, crony capitalists, global warming quacks who didn't hear the average temperature hasn't changed in the past 10 years.

This is Cameron's capitalism. Looks a lot like big government, big tax, big spending (i.e. waste), paternalist state.

Deepsnoozer

"I have had plenty to say about the coalition government’s inadequate economic policy, and its inability to stoke growth.. Is there any proof of this? Hyperlink possibly??