Built to last - but how do you build it?
I've been having a read of the Conservatives' revised Built to Last document, that was released today. I think it is quite a good illustration of both the strengths and shortcomings of the Cameron project to date.
In the document, David Cameron says that ‘The country needs a new direction and new answers.'
- business responsibility
- well-being
- the environment
- personal savings
- public health
- family life
These issues are new and fresh, and have the tactical advantage of being surprising: they are issues not often associated with the Conservative Party.
And what makes them interesting is that they go beyond the boundaries of the state. They aren’t like building hospitals, or reducing class sizes, or hiring more policemen – which can simply be ‘delivered’ by government acting alone.
But having landed on set of issues, Cameron has yet to come up with a convincing answer to the question: what is government there for? Government may not be able control the outcomes that 'Built to Last' highlights, but what kind of contribution can and should it make towards them?
At the moment the tories are prone to oscillating between vagaries (“By trusting people, we help individuals grow stronger; by sharing responsibility, we help society grow stronger.”
So though the revised document has more detail - some tangible expressions of what each of the aims might mean in practice - i'd say it still lacks definition. You can’t sum up the defining idea in it. By that test, i'd say its only a small step towards the intellectual renewal that Cameron is promising.
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But I'm struggling to work out how, in policy terms at least, it's decisively different from Labour. Several of the promises are simply to 'continue' or 'strengthen' things like Bank of England independence or DFID's status as an independent department. Others are aimed at rather pointless Tory hobby horses - abolishing regional assemblies that already have little formal power, resisting a European constitution that's dead in the water, the silly idea of an English 'bill of rights' to replace the perfectly good ECHR.
Here are where the big differences, such as they are, start to emerge for me:
1. Cameron wants to spend less on the public sector - the proceeds of growth will help pay for tax cuts as well as services. He'll use the voluntary sector and people's own initiative as a replacement, although he's not sure quite how to do that yet. His plans for public re-engagement are vague to the point of becoming meaningless - eg what does 'giving people more control over services' mean?
2. He wants to trust public servants more, although it's not quite clear how this is different from Labour's moves towards payment by results in the NHS, double devolution etc etc.
3. He has a tougher (and very good) focus on the environment and the beginnings of a distinctive agenda on democratic renewal (although you try disentangling a civil service act from a broader reform programme - not easy). Arms trade reform is good too.
4. Business gets lighter touch regulation and flatter, 'fairer' taxes for employers and 'wealth creators'. I always wonder whether I count as a wealth creator or not.
I suppose the vision is of a more self-reliant nation with a smaller state, 'enabling' social welfare by letting individuals and providers from all sectors work out the best way to deliver it. But isn't that just Blair with tax cuts and some liberal tweaks?
If you want a better sense of what's really coming you should look at the recent Reform pamphlet written by Nick Bosanquet, Andrew Haldenby and Nick Herbert. That's all about elected local control for the police and a more marketised approach for health and education. Herbert's policing essay is referenced pretty obviously in Built to Last.