wank

so they are calling it cameron conservatism. what drivel! what tosh! what marketing wank.
according to oliver letwin
the tories under david cameron have emerged from a period of wandering around in the “mist” with fresh new ideas that add up to cameron conservatism (and surely it should be cameronian conservatism or just “con” for short).
apparently one of the key theoretical advances of cameron conservatism is that politics today is socio-centric and not econon-centric (phrases that just slip off the tongue, you have to hope the media intern who coined them did so on a bet). no longer is politics about the economic but it is about society.
no shit.
which seems to be pretty much what the liberal left has been saying for years.

but no it is more than that. the cameronies are against government intervention in order to improve the social; they are not interested in top-down initiatives. no siree. what they are interested in is arguing for frameworks that give people and organisations the incentives to act in ways that fulfill not just their own self-interested ambitions but also their wider social responsibilities.
so that is a little like the way it was under thatcher.

so far this is turning out to be really radical and likely to cause the blind to see and the crippled to dance (but not earn as much as heather dancing the light fandango).

oliver letwin goes on to say "cameron conservatism puts no faith in central direction and control. instead, it seeks to identify externalities (social and environmental responsibilities) that participants in the free market are likely to neglect, and then seek to establish frameworks that will lead people and organisations to internalise those externalities - to act of their own volition in ways that will improve society by increasing general well being."
which i think means if you are one of the poor and weak in society you had better hope that there is a charity about to help you. if you are one of the rich in society, then you need deeper pockets in order to trouser the cash we will let you keep.
if you fall in the middle – well we are on your side, but you need to internalise some externalities.

or to quote the famous rugby song:
it's the same the whole world over
it's the poor that gets the blame
it's the rich what get the pleasure
ain't it all a fucking shame.

letwin and co seem to think that this is a new radical way of looking at the role of the state in the twenty-first century. as he says "to win a battle of ideas is always a hard task. but having an idea is certainly a good starting-point."

come on then olivier lets see the new ideas rather than this warmed up hash of old ideas.