David Cameron's ideas

A review of two books on Cameron and his program uncovers some of his principles. Cameron is basically a Burkean and Oakeshottean conservative, radically mistrustful of big government plans to engineer society, a crusader against the corrupt political classes and enamored with the power of small community to generate social welfare:

According to the Cameron analysis, New Labour offers change from the centre, the Conservative party change from below. Belief in Burke's "little platoons"—bodies like the women's institute, independent universities, a decentralised NHS, self-governing schools, the voluntary sector—underlies everything that Cameron says. This vision is intellectually coherent, and far more rooted in Tory thinking than critics inside the Conservative party have ever acknowledged. Cameron's political beliefs, applied in 21st-century Britain, would subvert the way we are governed.

Aside from the obvious objection raised in the article, that is whether Cameron the PM would willingly relinquish the power Westminster has amassed over the last years, there is always the issue of timing:

- Can this ideology survive a time of crisis, when BIG governments emerge as the only guarantors of good market functioning?
- With the decline of the City of London, Britain might be heading for another restructuring of its economy. Can the "little platoons" produce the economic edge that will get the British economy out of depression?
- Less government means less redistribution of wealth. With the middle classes in the US and England grumbling about the widening gap between them and the upper 2-3%, is it possible to revert to a more "hands-off" approach to tax and spend?

Time will show.