DAVID CAMERON has hit the ground running, doubling the number of
his Cabinet ministers who were educated in comprehensive schools,
and beginning his first Cabinet meeting by telling ministers that
they were to embody a new blue-collar conservatism that prioritised
the needs and aspirations of working people.
It was a striking contrast to the roundly defeated Labour Party,
whose surviving leaders seemed to be bogged down in a quagmire of
post-mortem blame and recrimination. The talk - as ever after a
Labour defeat - was of its need to redefine and revitalise. The
irony was that it was the Conservative leader, liberated from the
restraining influence of his erstwhile Liberal Democrat coalition
partners, who seemed most intent on putting a new vision into
action.
Some of that new vision is not new at all. Swingeing cuts in
benefits are to be prioritised. Restrictions on strikes will be
tightened. Faster-than-expected moves on the referendum to pull
Britain out of the EU and to repeal the Human Rights Act were
signalled.
An opening salvo in a war on the BBC was fired, with mystifying
threats to curb or cut the licence fee from its price of £12.13 a
month (an unbelievable bargain set against my cable-TV bill, which
is ten times higher). He can now bring in the boundary reform that
will reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 - and make it easier
for the Conservatives to win again. All this sounds like the old
partisan politics.
Some of the new agenda is, however, genuinely new, despite
keeping so many old faces in the jobs they had held under the
Coalition. There are more women in Parliament and Government than
before, one third of Mr Cameron's senior ministerial team now being
female. He will double the amount of free childcare available to
working women. And there was an interesting reinforcement of the
Tory strategy to rebuild its base in the north of England, with
more talk about the Northern Powerhouse and high-speed rail.
What was most intriguing were two rhetorical flourishes from the
untrammelled Tory leader. His pledge of "one-nation" Conservatism,
hours after his victory, was taken by some as a return to a softer
approach on cuts and public spending. His personnel and policy
announcements gave the lie to that. But the old phrase seems to
have been new code for a recognition that he now needs to reverse
his election strategy of exploiting division between the Scots and
English. His change on this is welcome. Little England will leave
us all worse off - culturally, socially, and economically.
There was also, I like to think, a hint of the "fresh moral
vision of the kind of country we want to be" which was called for
by the C of E Bishops in their pre-election Pastoral Letter (News,
20 February). The Prime Minister spoke of the dignity that a job
brings, of the responsibility of those who can make a contribution
to society to do so, and of the responsibility of the rest of us to
help those who cannot do so, at every stage of their lives. During
the election, sceptics might have suspected that this was just
electioneering. Now that it is over, we must hope that he really
means it.
Paul Vallely is Visiting Professor in Public Ethics and
Media at the University of Chester.