Can Cameron deliver?

14 November 2009

There is something about ‘compassionate conservatism’ that infuriates the Labour party, as if the very phrase were a deceitful contradiction in terms.

To give just one example, the Conservative leader spoke persuasively on redistributing the state’s power ‘from the central to the local’ on Tuesday. But he has found this difficult in practice, struggling to devolve power to his constituency associations in fear of the decisions that they might make. As Scottish devolution has demonstrated, there is no point devolving power to political institutions that will hoard it. His independent NHS board may simply turn the Health Service into the biggest quango in the world.

Speechmaking comes as easily to Mr Cameron as it does to Mr Obama. But if he fails to deliver, then the electorate will be unforgiving. Fixing our broken society means tearing up our massive dysfunctional welfare system and starting again. It means replacing the tangled web of welfare payments with a single benefit designed to ensure that everyone, at every income level, is better off in work. It is commendable that Mr Cameron has placed this problem at the very centre of his Conservatism. He has set the bar admirably high. But fairly soon, he must convince us that he has a means of vaulting it.