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David Cameron, plus asizable entourage, sweptpast, distracting the seniorLabour politician (now aCabinet minister) from our

conversation. It was November 2005, andthe self-styled ‘modern compassionate con-servative’ was on course to lead the Toryparty. ‘Does he worry you?’ I asked mylunch companion. ‘A bit, to be honest,’ wasthe reply. ‘But he’s fantastically right-wing,you know. You should read some of his oldspeeches.’

I did. And they were, indeed, a deepshade of blue. The trouble is that the elec-torate was apparently unwilling to make thesame effort. Labour’s attempts to portrayCameron as a right-wing wolf in woollycompassionate clothing failed in the face ofhis determined rebranding of his party. AnyTory leader who praised gay couples to hisown party conference – as Cameron did in2006 – was hard to paint as a reactionary.

The other principal line of attack againstCameron – that he is a toff, out of touchwith real people – has also foundered. Itwas undermined early on by Tony Blair,who handed Cameron the great line ‘It’snot where you come from that matters, butwhere you are going’. It was never a veryplausible approach, though, and the recenttop-hatted japes in Crewe marked the endof the cul-de-sac of attacking Cameron’sclass. The prospect of having a PrimeMinister and Mayor of London who are oldchums from Eton and Oxford’s BullingdonClub may stick in Labour throats – but itdoes not seem to bother the electorate.

If Labour politicians were a bit worriedin 2005, they are terrified now. Unless thereis a significant change in the political weath-er, Cameron is set to be Prime Ministerwithin two years. For a long time, Labourrefused to believe that Cameron was con-structing and executing a brilliant strategyto return the Tories to office by reshapingConservatism. Cameronism is real – as realas New Labour, or the Third Way – and islikely to be the guiding light of the nextgovernment.

Detoxifying�the�brandAs a political strategy, Cameronism repre-sents a largely successful attempt to detoxifythe Tory brand. Andrew Cooper, the Torymodernisers’ favourite polling guru, spentyears presenting evidence to party eldersshowing that people supported various

This�is�David�CameronA�year�ago,�this�journal�published�an�article�asking�whatCameronism�really�stood�for.�Twelve�months�on,�and�weare�much�closer�to�identifying�a�clear�agenda,�saysRichard�Reeves.

The�prospect�of�having�a�PrimeMinister�and�Mayor�of�Londonwho�are�old�chums�from�Etonand�Oxford’s�Bullingdon�Clubmay�stick�in�Labour�throats�–but�it�does�not�seem�to�botherthe�electorate

Conservative policies – until they were toldthey were Conservative policies. Cameronwas the first leader to understand this. Thefirst two years of his leadership consisted ofa relentless marketing exercise to demon-strate that Cameron was, variously, a ‘com-passionate’, ‘modern’, ‘liberal’, ‘centre-right’,‘practical’ Conservative: and that he wasleading his party in the same direction.

He has attempted to improve the repre-sentation of women and people from ethnicminorities. At his boldest, Cameron hasclaimed himself as the true ‘heir to Blair’.He and his colleagues now audaciouslyclaim to be pursuing ‘progressive ends byconservative means’ (Letwin 2008).

This first stage of the Cameron projecthas been like a sorbet between courses,intended to cleanse the electorate’s palate oflate Thatcherism. Now that the bitter taste isgone, tougher policies on welfare, immigra-tion and public services can be pursuedwithout being dismissed as typical productsfrom the ‘nasty party’.

Cameron is following a course outlinedin an email to him from Cooper in 2003:‘Once we do get people to believe that weare sincere – and our values are properlyaligned – we can be as robust and reformistas we like’ (Elliott and Hanning 2007: 316).Cameron was, perhaps, a little more explicitthan he intended when he said in 2007:‘We've prepared the ground by moving tothe centre’ (Cameron 2007a).

The success of Cameron’s rebrandingcampaign, and his heavy reliance on SteveHilton, a brilliant marketeer, has led a fewTories, such as Maurice Saatchi, RobinHarris, and Simon Heffer, to dismiss him asnothing more than a pre-packaged, ideolog-ically vacant product. Former ministerGeorge Walden has written that, in calibrat-ing his position, Cameron asks himself:‘What would Diana have done?’ (Elliott andHanning 2007: 311).

But�what�is�Cameronism?Cameronism is certainly not an ideology,nor even – yet – a coherent political philos-ophy. Cameron himself, in his Keith Joseph

Memorial lecture, explicitly rejected ‘ideo-logical’ politics, in favour of ‘practical con-servatism’ (Cameron 2005). But the broadcontours of his thinking, and that of thebright politicians and advisers around him,are now visible. Cameron is asking hardquestions about Labour’s record, and thestate of the nation. But he is asking toughquestions of himself, too, which have to beanswered before his party can be consid-ered fit for government.

Cameronism displays a number of keyfeatures: it emphasises the pragmatic overthe theoretical; takes an essentially opti-mistic view of human nature; favours thedevolution, rather than centralisation, ofpower; stresses social, rather than economic,progress; and places more faith in societythan in the state.

When he was studying Politics,Philosophy and Economics at Oxford,Cameron was enamoured of the Scottishenlightenment philosopher David Hume.‘After David Hume, he loved the free marketand Thatcher,’ recalled his friend JamesFergusson. ‘He thinks exactly like Hume –he’s a complete sceptic [...] it’s all about throw-ing out dogma and starting from scratch’(Elliott and Hanning 2007: 56). In this sense,Cameron really can claim to be following inthe footsteps of Blair, who famously claimedthat ‘what counts is what works’.

Cameron’s view of human nature alsoappears to draw on Hume’s conviction that,in affluent nations, progress would come fromthe growth of both knowledge and ‘humani-ty’, by which Hume meant the ‘fellow feeling’necessary for ‘civilisation’. Cameron said in2007: ‘What builds society, what encouragescivility, is people taking responsibility. Puttingeach other before themselves’ (Cameron2007b). While Thomas Hobbes believed thatthe state was a necessary buffer between self-interested individuals engaged in a ‘war of allagainst all’, Hume thought that, in the rightconditions, people would willingly act in con-cert, for the greater good. Cameron isHumean, rather than Hobbesian.

It is this essential optimism, that individu-als and communities can usually organisetheir lives more successfully than govern-

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ment, that underlies Cameron’s rhetoricalcommitment to move power from central tolocal government, and give users morepower over the manner in which public serv-ices are provided. Whether he is as much ofa localiser in power remains to be seen, butthe Conservatives now support directly elect-ed mayors, a shift towards more locally basedtaxation, and much more choice over schoolsand hospitals. Cameron has said the newConservatives ‘want schools to be independ-ent, locally-accountable, free institutions –not outposts of the Department of Schoolsand Young People, or whatever Ed Balls’empire is called’ (Cameron 2007c).

Cameron is honest about the fact thatThatcher’s governments started the central-ising trend long before Blair and Brownarrived on the scene, defending her on thedecidedly weak grounds that many councilshad fallen into the hands of the ‘loony left’.It is a weak defence, because Cameronclaims to welcome a diverse and democraticpatchwork of localities. Indeed, he quotesEdmund Burke to support his argumentthat local differences promote innovationand progress: ‘the reciprocal struggle of dis-cordant powers, draws out the harmony ofthe universe’ (Cameron 2007c).

But Cameronism diverges most sharplyfrom Thatcherism with its focus on social,rather than economic, matters. Cameronand his lieutenants argue that the nation isin a ‘social recession’ (Norman 2007, Letwin2008) and that ‘it’s the society, stupid’(Norman and Ganesh 2006). One ofCameron’s mantras, a deliberate wedgebetween himself and Thatcher, is that ‘thereis such a thing as society, it is just not thesame thing as the state’ (Cameron 2007a).

Of course, as the economy weakens, it ispossible Cameron will go easier on thesocial stuff, just as he already appears to betoning down the green side of his conser-vatism. But there is little sign of it so far.

In a speech in May 2008, widely report-ed for its revival of the Thatcherite drive for‘good housekeeping’, Cameron remainedclear about his overall objective. ‘All thissupports the overriding mission we have setfor ourselves: to revive our society just as

Margaret Thatcher revived our economy;to reverse Britain’s social breakdown, just asshe reversed our economic breakdown,’ hesaid. ‘We want to respond to what shouldbe a new post-bureaucratic age, by decen-tralising power, by giving people moreopportunity and control over their lives, bymaking families stronger and society moreresponsible’ (Cameron 2008a).

This paragraph is the best summary ofCameronism Cameron himself has yetarticulated. All the work on family break-down, poverty, lack of education and anti-social behaviour fits into the basic Cameronanalysis: society is broken, and the state can-not put it back together again. Cameronconstantly reiterates the limits of what gov-ernment can achieve, and lambasts Labourfor nationalising social problems.

In a speech to the Royal Society for theencouragement of Arts, Manufactures andCommerce (RSA) last year, Cameron, bor-rowing heavily from John F Kennedy, said:

‘The big question is not what will govern-ment do, but what will society do? Not somuch what will I do – but what will youdo? And what will we do together? Asneighbours, professionals, employers, con-sumers – and most of all, as parents – wehave the greatest power to make our countrya more civilised place to live.’ (Cameron 2007b)

At the same time, Cameronism focuses on theunderlying causes of social problems, ratherthan their symptoms. The state can alleviatepoverty through tax credits – but Cameronwants to prevent poverty in the first place,ditto drug dependency, family breakdownand joblessness. Cameron insists the taxpayeris picking up the bill for ‘social failure’. This isall coherent and plausible, but it is neitherespecially new nor particularly Conservative.

The Commission on Social Justice, estab-lished by John Smith and reporting in 1994,argued that ‘what central government can dofor people is limited, but there is no limit towhat people and communities can be enabledto do for themselves’ (Commission on SocialJustice 1994: 22). The Commission also quoted

from evidence provided by the Child PovertyAction Group, pointing out that benefits pay-ments could be inefficient and promotedependence, and urging ‘preventive measuresto tackle at source the barriers to opportunityand adequate income’ (ibid: 226).

Of course, the differences between theparties are hugely overstated, but the levelof political disorientation caused byCameronism is still difficult to cope with.Consider this statement by Oliver Letwin,Chairman of the Conservative Party’sPolicy Review:

‘We have put on the agenda issues of wellbe-ing, quality of life and social breakdownthat Labour has ignored. These are centralcontemporary challenges – but Labour’sfocus on markets and economic value at theexpense of all other concerns, their obsessionwith [ ] notions of private sector “efficiency”,have rendered Labour incapable of address-ing them.’ (Letwin 2008)

There is no way a shadow Labour ministerwould have dared write such socialist here-sies in 1995.

Hug�a�hoodie?Cameronism is, however, staunchly criticalof state initiatives to solve underlying socialproblems, insisting that ‘government has farless power than it sometimes likes to think,and we must recognise its limitations’(Cameron 2007b). Cameron has been muchmocked for encouraging us to ‘hug a hood-ie’, (although it was, of course, an Observersubeditor, summarising his announcements,who coined the phrase). At the RSA,Cameron was able to deal with the issue ofyouthful misbehaviour more thoughtfully:

‘There are two ways you can try to makethose kids behave better. You can put apoliceman on every bus, an ASBO on everyteenager and a parenting order on every par-ent. Costly, bureaucratic, short-term, superfi-cial, and, in the end, counterproductive –because it takes responsibility away from peo-ple and puts it in the hands of the state.

Alternatively, you can build a society wherethose kids know how to behave in public,because that’s how they’ve been brought upand that’s what society expects.’ (Cameron 2007b)

OK, Dave, that sounds great. Nobody cansensibly argue against a more sociallyresponsible, civilised society. Labour wouldlove to be able to cut the law and orderbudget following an outbreak of Humeanhumanity. But how – given that you, mostlycorrectly, suggest that the state can’t do it –are you going to lead us to this BraveResponsible World? Cameron says: ‘We canactively build the responsible society weneed by creating a framework of incentivesthat encourages civility and pro-socialbehaviour’ (Cameron 2007b).

But, and this is the big question forCameron, can we really? There is morethan a hint here, in Jon Elster’s phrase, ofCameron ‘willing that which cannot bewilled’ (Elster 1983). Cameron wants to ‘rollforward society’, but it is not yet clear howthis is to be achieved, and doubtful it can beachieved unless the Conservatives move toa more balanced view of the state.

Cameron verges on hypocrisy on the issueof state action. He has set up a Young AdultTrust, which he says is ‘working in partner-ship with many of Britain’s leading youthorganizations, to develop plans for a nationalprogramme for all sixteen year-olds that helpsteach them the responsibilities of adulthood’(Cameron 2007b). A national programme toteach adulthood? If Ed Balls announced it,the Tories would be turning it into a piece of‘nanny state gone mad’ propaganda.Cameron is quite right that Labour is veryoften guilty of a knee-jerk statism, but he isequally at risk of an unthinking anti-statism.

Cameronism will only be a new politicalmovement if it can get past the defunct ‘pro-state’ versus ‘anti-state’ divide. The morethoughtful Conservative modernisers havealready got to the properly liberal attitudetowards the state, which is an agnostic one.‘The purpose of reform and reducingdemand for government services is not taxreduction – that is a (welcome and neces-

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sary) by product’, writes Danny Finkelstein,a Times columnist and influential Torythinker. ‘The purpose is to change the rela-tionship between citizens and the state, tobuild a stronger society and to improve thequality of things like health and education’(Finkelstein 2008).

The Cameron critique of the state is,very often, that it simply is not workingproperly. Take the issue of family break-down. The Cameronite view is that familybreakdown is a major cause of a range ofother social ills: true. What, then, is to bedone? A tax break for marriage is mostly asymbolic measure, as Cameron himselfcomes close to admitting (Cameron 2008b).

What the Conservatives have done islook at the stress points for families, andpropose policies to offer some relief. Thebirth of a child is one pressure point, so theTories are advocating the provision of adedicated maternity nurse for every newfamily, for up to six hours a day, similar to aDutch scheme. The difficulty of combiningwork and childcare is another strain, so theConservatives want a new law giving allparents the right to request part-time work.These are welcome measures: but it doesseem as if it is the state, rather than society,that is rolling forward here.

Cameron also hopes that some of theactivities of the state would be better under-taken by the voluntary sector, or ‘non-statecollective provision’. To this end, he wants to‘nourish the voluntarism, altruism, locality,independence and diversity of Britain’s civilsociety’ (Cameron 2008c). One of the pro-posed policies for bolstering our Burkean ‘lit-tle platoons’ is – wait for it – a ‘network ofSocial Enterprise Zones’ (Cameron 2008c).It does look as if progressive ends do some-times require ‘progressive means’.

It is clear that some of Cameron’s anti-state rhetoric is designed to help theConservatives paint Gordon Brown and hisallies as statist, centralising meddlers – a taskthat is made easier by the fact that theyoften are. But the truth is that, in manyareas, the Conservatives want to modernisethe state, or give more control over bits of

the state to citizens, or rebalance the centraland local arms of the state, rather thanshrink it. And it might be as well to startsaying so.

But there are many areas, such as anti-social behaviour, individual health andlocal governance, where Cameronism rep-resents a genuine stepping back of the statein the optimistic hope that ‘society’ will fillthe gap, and that individuals and communi-ties will indeed take on more responsibility.This is the genuine radicalism ofCameronism, and the greatest paradoxabout Cameron himself. Even beforebecoming PM, he is making a compellingargument for his own powerlessness at thehead of government: real power lies in soci-ety. If elected, Cameron will be first PrimeMinister from Britain’s ruling class for half acentury – but one who proudly claims notto be able to rule.

Richard Reeves is author of John StuartMill – ‘Victorian Firebrand’, London:Atlantic Books

Cameron D (2005a) ‘Practical Conservatism’ Sir Keith JosephMemorial Lecture, Centre for Policy Studies, 10 March

Cameron D (2007a) ‘Security for our society; opportunityin your life’, Keynote speech, Tooting, 18 June

Cameron D (2007b) ‘Civility and Civil Progress’, Speech tothe RSA, 23 April

Cameron D (2007c) ‘From government to people’, Speechto the Young Foundation, 13 November

Cameron D (2008a) ‘Living within our means’, Speech, 19May, available at www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.story.page&obj_id=144918

Cameron D (2008b) ‘Family Life’, Speech to Relate confer-ence, 9 June

Cameron D (2008c) ‘Launch of Voluntary Action GreenPaper’, Speech, 3 June

Commission on Social Justice (1994) Social Justice:Strategies for national renewal London: Vintage

Elliott F and Hanning J (2007) Cameron – the rise of thenew Conservative London: Fourth Estate

Elster J (1983) Ulysses Unbound Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press

Finkelstein D (2008) What Cameron had to say about taxBlog posted 19 May, available at:http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2008/05/what-cameron-ha.html

Letwin O (2008) ‘Bring on the scrutiny’ in The Guardian, 3June

Norman J (2007) ‘Buy into Cameron’s co-op’ in TheSunday Times, 11 November

Norman J and Ganesh J (2006) CompassionateConservatism London: Policy Exchange