Way to go, Mr Cameron

This week a new expression enters the lexicon of Conservative thought: social justice. According to David Cameron, the Conservative party now offers ‘a forward-looking vision which recognises that social justice will only be delivered by empowering people to fulfil their potential’. The party even now has a ‘social justice poverty group’ led by the former leader Iain Duncan Smith. Many Conservatives will be appalled; for them ‘social justice’ will represent the very worst of Blairite gobbledegook: two words stitched together, without real meaning, just because they cause a faint glow of warmth when uttered to members of focus groups. You can almost hear them now, clinking gin glasses down at the Dog and Duck as they ponder, ‘Never mind social justice, what about some real justice for all these muggers and burglars?’

We won’t be joining those who sneer at the Conservative leader’s latest initiative. Look beyond the slogan and it becomes clear that Mr Cameron is propounding what this magazine has been advocating for years: that the work of supporting the poor and the needy is best done by families, but where it cannot be done by families it is better done by charities and voluntary groups than by a politicised and bureaucratic welfare state. To this end, Mr Cameron has proposed to set up ‘social enterprise zones’ where people can set up voluntary groups with minimal bureaucracy. Rather than have social problems dealt with by top-down initiatives run by overpaid bigwigs in unaccountable public agencies, he wants to see communities take on the responsibility themselves: run their own housing associations, drop-in centres and what have you. No Conservative should pooh-pooh this laudable aim. David Cameron deserves much credit for rescuing the concept of self-help from the negative connotations it has acquired in the minds of many since Mrs Thatcher, in a different context than is widely understood, uttered her poorly chosen words, ‘There is no such thing as Society.’