James Forsyth James Forsyth

Cameron’s speech shows he wants a re-run of 1992

David Cameron’s Chequers speech writing session was held hours after Ed Miliband had finished speaking at Labour conference, and it showed today. This was Cameron’s passionate, sometimes angry, response to the Labour leader. He wanted to make the case that Miliband’s move to the left would endanger the British economy.

His message was give me the time and I will finish the job. What’s the job, building a ‘land of opportunity’. This seems to mean an enterprise economy with an education system good enough to enable social mobility. It is a very Tory message.

But Cameron was keen to show that he’s still a compassionate Conservative. As he discussed his plan to make youngsters either earn or lean, he sounded like the pushy parent, father of the nation. He argued that he wouldn’t accept his own kids sitting around on the dole, so why should he accept any kids doing that.

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