Cameron’s capitalism

Ever since Ed Miliband’s ‘predatory capitalism’ speech at the Labour Party conference, the future of capitalism has been a subject that has much occupied our MPs. Clegg made his speech on Monday, and Cameron delivered his yesterday. I have had plenty to say about the coalition government’s inadequate economic policy, and its inability to stoke growth. But Cameron’s speech was impressive, and it’s worth going into in some detail. I look at it in my Telegraph column today.

Much rot is spoken about capitalism. It is not an ideology, there is no rule book you can tweak: it is simply the name given to the system where people trade with each other the world over. There are as many types of capitalism are there are countries: the very word is good for making speeches, or selling books, but not much else. Cameron is a proudly post-ideological leader, which is why his speech made so much sense.