David Cameron's idea of the Good Life

On welfare, in particular, David Cameron has been accused of lacking specifics over his plans.

In fact, a critic might claim he only ever makes clear, bold statements when they are directed towards fictional people presenting arguments that do not actually exist. The reason a critic might say that is because he does it all time.

Take his first big address on welfare since the election, given at an academy in northern England.

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Showing the sort of leadership British politics has been crying out for, he started off warning there is “nothing progressive about robbing from our children”.

This bravery was good to see. The so-called progressives who apparently base their fiscal policy on robbing from little children have a lot to answer for, and Cameron was taking them on.

Speaking with a blank, passionless expression, he said he wanted to deal with the causes of poverty, rather than the symptoms.

And given one of the symptoms of poverty is blaming David Cameron for slashing the welfare budget, you can see his rationale.

Speaking in front of a sign reading ‘building a brighter future’, he said: “When it comes to extending opportunity – there is a right track and a wrong track.”

This is true, though of course the same thing could be said of speeches. Examples of the wrong track would include using vacuous phrases, like “When it comes to extending opportunity – there is a right track and a wrong track”.

“The right track is to recognise the causes of stalled social mobility and a lack of economic opportunity.”

He continued: “Family breakdown. Debt. Addiction. Poor schools. Lack of skills. Unemployment.”

In this sense, poverty is largely characterised by very short sentences. 

And it sounded good, but many watching will have asked, why not just ignore the causes of poverty, David? Why not just simply treat the symptoms and assume everything will be ok?

That, we learned, is not right at all. That is the wrong track. The good news is, there are solutions. Solutions based in longer sentences. “Take, for example, the complacency in how we approach the crucial issue of low pay. There is what I would call a merry-go-round.”

Now, it’s possible David Cameron has lived on low pay, but clearly he has never been to a funfair.

Or maybe he has. Maybe it scarred him. Maybe he had an awful experience of a merry-go-round as a child – getting on one in a spirit of childish adventure, only for it to go hellishly wrong.

One moment young David was riding on a fiberglass lion, bubbling with joy, before waking up years later to find he had been sucked into a nightmarish world of low pay and low aspiration, stuck doing routine maintenance on the fair ground for a predatory employer – staring at the wrench in his oil stained, blistered hands while vowing that one day he would become PM and ban merry-go-rounds forever.

Continuing, he said: “Whether you voted for me or campaigned against me; whether you are middle income or low paid or not in work at all, whether you live in a leafy suburb or an inner-city community, this government wants to extend opportunity, and what in the election campaign I called a good life, for all.”

Of course wanting to extend opportunity and actually trying to do so are two different things.

And anyone who has seen the 1970s sitcom The Good Life would probably have been surprised by this new commitment to it.

Admittedly, he was always pretty vague about what he meant by the ‘big society’, but at the time it really was not at all obvious it was shorthand for quitting your job and retiring to live through a barter system, while having hilarious cultural mix-ups with your uptight neighbours. Though that does sound like one of Steve Hilton’s ideas.

The speech went on – it was a long one – with Cameron vowing to remove “perverse incentives” that stop people working.

That bit was especially powerful if you keep in mind it came from an elected representative. If an MP considers something to be “perverse” then it must be truly depraved.

Explaining, he said: “This is a fundamental part of what I called in the election campaign my 2020 vision – with 20 per cent more jobs, 20 per cent more university places and a 20 per cent increase in apprenticeship take-up for black and minority ethnic communities.”

Twenty per cent more jobs by 2020! Imagine how good the Good Life would be if the next decade was 2030.

But then he was back, yet again, to talking about this nightmarish merry-go-round of his. It obviously plays on his mind.

The good news is that, by the end, we were much closer to 2030 than we had been at the start, and everyone had a better idea of his plans – basically, he is going to increase the minimum wage by 20p per hour in six months’ time, while cutting £12bn from the welfare budget.

Not exactly swings and roundabouts, but when we all start using barter, it probably won’t matter.