Responsibility, responsibility, responsibility

You have to give David Cameron marks for trying. He’s still trying to breathe life into the word “responsibility” in hope that it can become some kind of a political battle cry. Steve Hilton literally built a business making “corporate social responsibility” into something that companies buy into – but it’s harder to do the same with politics. Every politician claims what they do is responsible, it’s not a distinguishing feature. The more Cameron uses the r-word, the more it reminds me if Brown starting every sentence “it is right that we…” Yet no new Tory idea is complete without the r-word, whether it’s the Debt Responsibility Mechanism or the Office for Budget Responsibility. And Cameron uses the word 13 times in his speech to the Women’s Organisation today. I wouldn’t mind if it were a word that was distinctly conservative, such as “empowerment”, but the R-word is rather nebulous and risks making Tory policies looks gimmicky, as if they are trying to find an agenda to fit the word and not vice versa.