Cameron’s evidence is wrong and his logic is fuzzy

By Will Straw

David Cameron’s speech on Thursday was an attempt to set out his governing philosophy. Unfortunately it ignored even the most basic principles of logic.

Let’s start with his proposition about Labour’s “record.” Cameron sets out that under Labour, “the poor have got poorer, social mobility has stalled, our carbon emissions have gone up, our quality of life has gone down and … people feel more at risk from the threat of crime.”

Now statistics can be a damned thing but it is hard to argue with genuine facts. To avoid accusations of sounding like a Labour party press release, I’ll steer clear of data from the Government. Let’s look first at poverty and social mobility. According to the OECD, “Since 2000, income inequality and poverty have fallen faster in the United Kingdom than in any other OECD country.” The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies corroborates this and outlines that, “income growth as a whole has been more equal under Labour than under the Conservatives.” They go on to outline that 600,000 children have been lifted out of relative poverty and 1.8 million lifted out of absolute poverty since 1997. This is hardly a reversal in the quality of life.

In relation to green policy, the European Environment Agency reports that between 1990 and 2006, the UK was second only to Germany in reducing greenhouse gas emissions: “In 2006, the United Kingdom’s emissions were 18 % lower than the base-year level, well below its burden-sharing target.”

The only area where Cameron has a leg to stand on is his point about perceptions of crime. But even here the waters are so muddy that John Reid, while Home Secretary, commissioned an independent review of crime statistics.

So what of Cameron’s conservative means? He advocates, “decentralising responsibility and power, strengthening families and society, building a new economy, and ensuring that government lives within its means.”

Decentralisation as described sounds wonderful but it masks a more sinister viewpoint. Delve a little deeper into the archive of Cameron’s speeches and we find that he is, “instinctively sceptical of the state – sceptical of bureaucratic systems to deliver progress – and instead trust society.” Ring any bells? In this week of inauguration addresses it reminds me of Ronald Reagan’s statement that, “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” So much for being a progressive, more of a slap in the face to the millions of public sector workers who work hard to give back to a society that the Conservative Party have only recently admitted actually exists.

While social entrepreneurs within the “third sector” can play an important role in delivering public services, it is irresponsible to cut government provision and rely on private charity to take up the slack. In 1870, William Forster MP’s Elementary Education Act set the framework for universal education and took the burden from private benefactors. So too, in 1942, the Social Insurance and Allied Services report by William Beveridge paved the way for the creation of the National Health Service which swept away the unsatisfactory patchwork of private, municipal and charity schemes. And this is not to mention the postcode lottery and lack of accountability that decentralisation would cause.

Cameron’s belief that by centralising power, Labour has, “undermined responsibility and weakened, rather than strengthened, social institutions – notably the family,” strikes me as a very bold claim and I cannot fathom what evidence he has used to come to this assertion. In any case, the idea of the 2.4 children family structure has become antiquated in the developed world and is not something that public policy – whether centralised or decentralised – can revive. Any attempt to do so risks penalising many responsible parents including gay and lesbian couples, lone parents, and those who have lost loved ones. So much for the Conservative leader’s progressive ends.

What about the “new economy?” It is certainly hard to reconcile as conservative his description of a plan that “rethinks the way our economy works so we can unblock social mobility, unleash green growth and raise everyone’s quality of life as well as everyone’s standard of living”. This sounds suspiciously like Labour Party policy to me. And even if he is onto something, there is so little detail as to make the idea laughable.

Cameron’s final policy is to ensure that “government lives within its means.” This is certainly a conservative notion and one that would lead to economic catastrophe. As President Obama understands so clearly, once the normal lever for getting out of a recession, cutting interest rates, has been exhausted, any responsible government has to turn to fiscal policy and deficits. Indeed, if unaddressed the recession could severely undermine tax revenues and prompt more government spending for longer.

So, unlike Martin Kettle, I do not trust the man. His logic is fuzzy, his evidence is wrong, and his conclusions are false. Just like that old menace, Conservative Conservatism