David Cameron yesterday released a new version of the Built to Last statement of aims and values that he will submit to the Conservative Party membership for approval in a ballot. It was a sound decision to add more detail. There was nothing especially objectionable in the original draft but nothing immensely inspiring either. It was strong on slogans but too light on substance. That charge has been levelled at Mr Cameron personally and there is the risk of it sticking. It is rational of him to want to avoid speci-fic policies years before a general election but he cannot rely on an amiable personality indefinitely. Familiarity without content can breed contempt.
The extended Built to Last thus has the merit of saying something. There are, admittedly, still glib and grating phrases such as “responsibility revolution” that would be treated with a mixture of bemusement and derision were they to be sprung on the voters at the hustings. In most places, nonetheless, the tone is more sober and all the better for it. There is much that is sensible on economics and the importance of incorporating the voluntary sector in a drive to reduce poverty. These may not be novel themes for a Conservative politician to articulate, but they have been missing from the Tory narrative for too long.
It is where Mr Cameron attempts to innovate most that he is not only unconvincing but inconsistent: for example, where he addresses the supposed “great environmental threats of the age” and offers policies to flesh out his truly extraordinary insight that there is “more to life than money”.
Mr Cameron’s central proposal for climate change is “binding annual targets” for carbon reduction. This pledge is made even though the Tory leader favours “ending the culture of top-down centralisation and targets” in the National Health Service and aspires to “reduce top-down centralisation targets” on the police force. Yet these, apparently invidious, targets surely pale into insignificance when compared with binding annual targets for carbon reduction that — if they are to mean anything of note — would have to overarch the entire economy. It is a statist so-called plan for a party that is supposed to have faith in individual ingenuity and the competitive solutions embodied in the market.
Much the same applies to the idea that the Conservatives would induce “greater corporate responsibility”, a phrase which implies that business has an innate reckless urge to be “irresponsible”. And there may be many in the private sector who will be intrigued to learn that the best way to “strike a better balance between work and life” is to strive to ensure that the “British public sector” is “a world leader in flexible working”. There would be a rather more flexible society in Britain if the public sector were a little smaller.
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This is, of course, a (flexible) work in progress. There is much in this statement that indicates a welcome modernisation of the Conservative Party. But what that modernisation should mean is that the Tories stand fore-square for individual freedom and the merits of the market and that this stance is articulated in a moderate yet compelling manner. Mr Cameron is capable of that combination of virtues but the green and wellbeing themes provided here need to be rebalanced. He will begin to bore his listeners if he appears to speak passionately about banalities. A political inflection point needs more content than cadence.