Cameron promotes BS

Bryan Appleyard's article from the Sunday Times reviews David Cameron's recent speech in which he sets out his vision for what Cameron calls "The Big Society". As Appleyard describes this is an attempt to give an ideological foundation to the Tory leader's recent marketing offensive over the last few years to reposition the Tories as a more progressive political force.

This marketing offensive is regarded as being something of a success and Cameron has received plaudits from the marketing profession for his efforts as stated in this Guardian article.

According to Appleyard the speech is notable for the range of intellectual influnces and ideas including Eric von Hippel's ideas about user innovation, Archon Fung's "accountable autonomy" and Ricard Wilkinson and Kate Picketts work The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. This argued that the more equal societies are, the healthier and happier they are.

In brief Cameron's speech states that the the big state has failed but that the Conservatives cannot just return to Thatcherite policies of trying to reduce the size of the state and the scope of its interventions. Instead the state must enable and create more social activism to encourage non-state actors to play a bigger role in improving living conditions and helping those who are most disadvantaged. The speech quotes the behaviourial psychologist Robert Cialdini who founded Influence at Work, an organisation that teaches businesses and governments how to be persuasive by deploying ethical influence strategies and Cialdini's main point is that the most important driver of behaviour is the behaviour of others. To this end Cameron hopes to identify and promote social pathfinders like Debbie Scott, the founder of the charity Tomorrow's People .

Whether Cameron's speech involves a real change in Conservative policy or is merely ideological window-dressing to garnish the Party with pseudo-progressive credentials in advance of the General Election is an interesting question. The disdain for state involvement and the wish to involve more charities and not for profits in providing social programmes smacks of a return to the 19th century position before the introduction of the Welfare State. However the speech is most definitely in line with Cameron's impressive effort to reposition the Conservative Party in the eyes of the voters in England and Wales as one which is concerned about issues of social welfare and social justice and is not just fixated on free-market fundamentalism. As yet this effort has reaped little reward in Scotland where the Conservative brand appears to be as unpopular as ever.