‘Social responsibility’ is a bad name for a good idea: Cameron is truly on to something this time

How much does a hamburger really cost? Within this question, as one of David Cameron’s senior advisers explained to me, lies the Conservatives’ new driving philosophy. A Big Mac costs £1.99. But if children guzzle too many they become obese and inflict a burden on the National Health Service. The taxpayer funds this treatment — so the burger costs more than the child’s family originally pays. Might a responsible Tory government ensure the child pays what the burger truly costs?

In an underground auditorium on the Strand on Monday, Mr Cameron convened a one-day conference to discuss such issues. Speakers were lined up and copies of a book of his speeches were piled up outside. The purpose of the gathering was to promote and discuss what he declared is ‘the big idea for the Conservative party in this decade and succeeding decades’. He calls that idea, as he did at last year’s Tory conference, ‘social responsibility’. It will, the Tory leader says, involve a ‘revolution’ in personal, parental and corporate behaviour. And however ridiculous it may sound, it is here to stay.

For some time now, Mr Cameron has been trying to articulate the ideological thread which he says runs through his speeches. It is a personal and political faith in the power of non-state actors: the voluntary group which tackles deprivation, the company which decides to go carbon-neutral. Such protagonists on the social stage, he believes, help Britain in a way which yet more government legislation cannot. So, as Prime Minister, his core activity would lie not in lawmaking but the empowerment and encouragement of such groups and individuals.

Nothing annoys him more than the suggestion that all this defies conservative principles. ‘Social responsibility’ is the rather awkward name which he has given to what Hayek called ‘spontaneous order’ and Burke called ‘little platoons’ of civil society.