Cameron’s attempt to re-moralise the economy

One of the great challenges facing Britain is how to re-moralise society. A country where individuals, or businesses, can’t tell the difference between right and wrong has fundamental problems.

The Times reports today that David Cameron is planning to start talking about the need for “moral markets”. There’ll be those on the right who don’t like this, who feel it is pandering to Ed Miliband’s distinctions between predator and producer capitalism. Others will feel that it is impractical. Then there are those who’ll counter that the only responsibility of business is to maximise profits.

But this is important territory for Conservatives to be on. Cameron’s “chocolate orange” speech back in 2006 mattered because it recognised that there was corporate behaviour that it would be impossible, and wrong, to regulate against but which shouldn’t be encouraged.