Apparently the new issue of Prospect carries a piece by Philip Blond of Demos in which
He calls on Cameron to lead a massive redistribution of power and wealth, to restore Britain’s “lost” civil society and local pride, to break up monopolies, protect small businesses and promote microfinance and self-improvement for the poor. If this sounds radical and distinctly un-Thatcherite, it’s because it is. But, Blond points out, as late as August 2008 David Cameron was promising to be “as radical a social reformer as Margaret Thatcher was an economic reformer.”
This confuses me, since a lot of it sounds pretty Thatcherite to me. Self-improvement? Check. Small businesses? The grocer’s daughter was all in favour of them, surely? Suspicion of monopolies? Well Thatcherism was always a little more Friedrich Hayek than Milton Friedman. Granted, Cameron’s professed (that is, I’ll believe it when I see it) committment to localism runs somewhat contrary to the Thatcher revolution’s centralising instincts but in general I think you see here a kind of merging of the One Nation and Thatcherite streams of Conservative thinking in a kind of grand bargain.
Britain’s best politics newsletters
You get two free articles each week when you sign up to The Spectator’s emails.
Already a subscriber? Log in
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in