Pressure brings out the best in David Cameron and right now he’s coasting. He
gave, as Pete and Fraser have said, a subdued speech. The content was there but his delivery was calm, except on two
occasions when he spoke rather than read the autocue. He attempted to sell the Big Society (third time and no luckier). Then he said, with conviction, ‘I don’t believe in laissez
faire.’
Those six words are pure Tory Reform Group, pure Iain Macleod, pure One Nation. He evoked that traditional form of Torysim with a firm description of how his government seeks to empower people as responsible groups not just free individuals. A theme encapsulated by the soundbite: ‘Mine is not just a vision of a more powerful country, it is of a more powerful people’, which is the essence of the Big Society.
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