More Bono than King, Cameron’s speech was sex, lies and videotape

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

You have to give it to him. In low-lighting, David Cameron’s concert production was slick, his rhetoric powerful and his delivery superb. It was a personal speech; thought-provoking, philosophical and calm. Many people will be endeared to him as a result. In many ways, it was duly Prime Ministerial.

But in others, it was pure sex, lies and videotape. Largely vacuous, it was littered with contradiction and incomprehensible misnomers:

“Civil partnerships…devolution…the minimum wage: these are good things that we will keep.” But these are all Labour policies that the Conservatives opposed.

“We’ve won the argument on the economy”, Cameron said. That’s laughable when the Tories have been virtually alone in major global political parties in repeatedly opposing fiscal stimulus and other measures to beat the recession.

But the worst falsehood or misunderstanding of them all was the Reaganomic nonsense that “more government got us into this mess.”

It wasn’t government that caused the economic crisis. It was greed in the private and financial sectors. Government has eased this recession; it didn’t cause it. Government’s role in the last two years has been to prop up failed private institutions and to lift people up – not put Britain down.

“There are not many reasons to be cheerful”, Cameron said. But “if you’re frightened, we will protect you”.

This was a Cameron that hated modern Britain on the one hand and loved and respected it on the other; a Cameron reaching out to Labour voters with anti-poverty rhetoric, while aching for the good old days of Thatcherite values.

In rephrasing that there will be “difficult times ahead” Cameron positioned himself as Britain’s saviour, a Martin Luther King for the post-recessionary age.

But in the undertones beneath the gloss, it was easy to see that this was not a new, inclusive, hopeful or uplifting vision for modern Britain.

More Bono than King, it was often tired, frequently repetitive and bitterly sanctimonious.