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| The Guardian view on David Cameron’s conference speech: check against delivery | The Guardian view on David Cameron’s conference speech: check against delivery |
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| Party leaders always put enormous efforts into their annual conference speeches. David Cameron is no exception. But once the eruption of instant media assessment dies away, conference speeches are often soon forgotten. In his Conservative conference address on Wednesday, however, Mr Cameron sounded like he wanted to overturn that assumption. His Manchester speech may prove one of the few leaders’ speeches that achieves a political afterlife. If he is really lucky, it may even end up on the Tory honours board alongside Benjamin Disraeli’s own Manchester speech on social reform almost a century and a half ago. | |
| If Mr Cameron’s speech does become an enduring Conservative reference point, it will be because this was a consciously signposting speech for a reformist Tory pitch to those centrist voters on whom Labour has turned its back. The principal reason why the Conservatives won the 2015 general election is that they were more trusted on the economy. Mr Cameron’s purpose now is to say they can be more trusted on social policy too. We are not a one-trick party, he said. Instead the Tories must enter no-go areas and take on Britain’s social problems of poverty, social immobility and extremism. There can be no disputing the stated ambition. The question is whether that ambition is turned into deeds, thereby redeeming much of the often destructive record of the last five years. | If Mr Cameron’s speech does become an enduring Conservative reference point, it will be because this was a consciously signposting speech for a reformist Tory pitch to those centrist voters on whom Labour has turned its back. The principal reason why the Conservatives won the 2015 general election is that they were more trusted on the economy. Mr Cameron’s purpose now is to say they can be more trusted on social policy too. We are not a one-trick party, he said. Instead the Tories must enter no-go areas and take on Britain’s social problems of poverty, social immobility and extremism. There can be no disputing the stated ambition. The question is whether that ambition is turned into deeds, thereby redeeming much of the often destructive record of the last five years. |
| Related: Contrast egg-throwing with Tory personal attacks | Letters | |
| To do that, Mr Cameron will also need fortune to smile on him where dark clouds loom. He will need, in particular, sustained and solid economic growth. Yet this week the International Monetary Fund downgraded its global growth forecast and warned of the risk of another financial crash that, if it comes, could devastate the UK economy and weigh most heavily on the poor. He will need, in addition, early evidence that his focus on social reform is bearing down on problems that in many cases have been worsening on his watch. The “all-out assault on poverty” that Mr Cameron promises sits uncomfortably alongside Thursday’s prediction that 200,000 more families will be pushed into poverty by this government’s summer budget cuts to tax credits and other benefits. The all-out assault on poverty will seem a sick joke if those trends are not reversed. | |
| Mr Cameron is a famously smooth speechmaker. That skill won him his party’s leadership a decade ago. Since then, however, he has often over-promised and under-delivered on social policy and on much else. So, while the turn to social reform deserves to be genuinely welcomed in principle, it must be tested against government actions and outcomes if it is to be believable. Words are not enough. The Tory party’s historic reform credentials on everything from slavery abolition to gay marriage have been interestingly invoked in Manchester this week, including by the prime minister on Wednesday. Yet it will take more than words to reverse worsening problems of homelessness, housing costs, family poverty, overuse of prison and static social mobility, for all of which Mr Cameron’s governments bear a big share of responsibility. | Mr Cameron is a famously smooth speechmaker. That skill won him his party’s leadership a decade ago. Since then, however, he has often over-promised and under-delivered on social policy and on much else. So, while the turn to social reform deserves to be genuinely welcomed in principle, it must be tested against government actions and outcomes if it is to be believable. Words are not enough. The Tory party’s historic reform credentials on everything from slavery abolition to gay marriage have been interestingly invoked in Manchester this week, including by the prime minister on Wednesday. Yet it will take more than words to reverse worsening problems of homelessness, housing costs, family poverty, overuse of prison and static social mobility, for all of which Mr Cameron’s governments bear a big share of responsibility. |
| Does Mr Cameron have the time, the drive and the authority to make good on what he offered on Wednesday? He already has a lot on his plate. Europe, a quiet issue this week, could become destructive very soon. Migration already divides the government. The spending review could knock the new reformism off track. The Scotland question remains. And the leadership issue simmers. Britain does not love the Tories. Yet the Tory party has felt good about itself in Manchester this week. Four and a half years of government beckon. There is little threat from Ukip or Labour and a confidence that, thanks to Jeremy Corbyn, the 2020 election is the Tories’ to lose. If Mr Cameron turns a real share of his social reform agenda into tangible reality, this could indeed be a watershed moment in British electoral politics. | Does Mr Cameron have the time, the drive and the authority to make good on what he offered on Wednesday? He already has a lot on his plate. Europe, a quiet issue this week, could become destructive very soon. Migration already divides the government. The spending review could knock the new reformism off track. The Scotland question remains. And the leadership issue simmers. Britain does not love the Tories. Yet the Tory party has felt good about itself in Manchester this week. Four and a half years of government beckon. There is little threat from Ukip or Labour and a confidence that, thanks to Jeremy Corbyn, the 2020 election is the Tories’ to lose. If Mr Cameron turns a real share of his social reform agenda into tangible reality, this could indeed be a watershed moment in British electoral politics. |