So far as words matter, David Cameron has just delivered one of the most forceful statements of his political career. It contained all the anger of his address yesterday, but went much further in its diagnosis. “There are pockets of our society that are not only broken, but frankly sick,” he said, adding that, “the one word I would use to sum it up is irresponsibility.” His most memorable line was that, “It is as much a moral problem as it is a political problem.” This was the campaigning Cameron that we have glimpsed only briefly, most notably during his conference speech in 2009.
Tim Montgomerie is saying that Cameron has found his mission — but I’d disagree. I’d say that this was always part of Cameron’s mission, and indeed of the coalition’s, although it has rarely been so punchily expressed. The idea that society, or at least sections of it, needed to be more responsible was encoded into Cameron’s leadership pitch in 2005. The policies to further that cause, among them welfare reform and more rigorous schooling, are ones that his government is enacting. The question is not whether the Lib Dems will get in the way, but whether Westminster’s bickering political class will, across years, maintain the determination to see those policies properly enacted.
If Cameron did overstep the mark, rhetorically at least, it was in emphasising “a clearer code of values and standards that people need to live by” — a little too blunt from any politician. But the same could not be said of his confirmation that “we now have in place contingency plans for water-cannons to be available at 24 hours notice.” After returning from holiday, the Prime Minister appears to be getting a grip.
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