Cameron has immunised himself from attacks on his morality matters approach

Conservative Home is worrying about how the press might report Cameron’s Glasgow speech, fearful that it might be presented as a ‘nasty party’ attack. But to my mind, the Tories don’t need to worry: this dog won’t hunt.

First of all, Cameron has detoxified the Tory brand enough and spent so long portraying himself as a contemporary man that trying to paint him as some social authoritarian eager to take Britain back to Victorian times just won’t work. For this type of character attack to wound they have to chime with what people think about a politician. In this case, they will fall as flat as attempts to portray Boris as a racist did.  Second, I suspect that the public overwhelmingly agrees with Cameron—they see what he is talking about every day. Third, Cameron is not just knocking the current state of society, he is offering solutions and no one can credibly claim that there is not a problem when we learn so regularly of the tragic costs of social breakdown. If commentators chose to mock the idea that morality matters, they will open themselves up to ridicule from the public at large.