Cameron calls for "bright" bankers to use their talents to help poor

Speaking in Davos later this afternoon the Conservative leader David Cameron will say that he will "stand up for business because it's businesses, not governments or politicians, that create jobs, wealth and opportunity."  He will continue: "It's businesses that drive innovation and choice, and help families achieve a higher standard of living for a lower cost."

But he will also call on businesses to work within a stronger moral framework:

"I think it’s time to update the free market orthodoxy that has dominated the past few decades. It’s time to assert a fundamental truth: that markets are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Markets are there to serve our society, not to suck the joy out of it or trample over its values. So we must shape capitalism to suit the needs of society; not shape society to suit the needs of capitalism.  That is what I mean by responsible business. Business helping to create a society that is greener, safer, fairer - and where opportunity is more equal. Business helping to create a society that is more family-friendly, where responsibility and power are decentralised, and where we value and build up the institutions of the public realm and civic society.  So if markets, and capitalism, and the activities of individual businesses conflict with our vision of the good society and a better life if damage is being done to our environment, or if family life is being undermined we must not sit there and take it, going along with the old orthodoxy that nothing should be allowed to impede the pursuit of profit. We must speak out."

He will call for the financial system to redirect its talents to the world's poorest citizens: "Our financial system boasts people so bright they've created financial instruments beyond even their own understanding. Now they need to use those talents to help the poorest build assets. To go into our most deprived communities, giving them the tools to make the most of the market, to help them with banking and saving and owning."

> Download a PDF of the full speech.

[CCHQ gave ConHome permission to publish this post in advance of the original 6pm embargo].

8pm: Andrew Lilico on CentreRight questions 'Cameron's State Capitalism'

Comments

[David_at_Home]

Bright Bankers? That rather limits the choice to the great “Imperial” banks, HSBC or Standard Chartered, does it not?

[The Bad Plus]

What an overblown ego this man has.

Come up with some genuine, radical and realistic ideas rather than gatecrashing parties where nobody knows who you are or what you are doing.

When the government is so poor, it's only natural people look to the Opposition but for heaven's sake, are we really so blind as to think Cameron is any different to Brown, or Blair or even John Major?

[Patrick Harris]

What is the difference between a "bright" banker and the bankers that brought us to the present sorry financial crisis, sure brightness is only discovered with hindsight. I mean, all the bankers that are now thought to belong to a group of people whose title may rhyme with banker, thought that they were pretty bright to make billions and billions (mostly for themselves).
That is, before the lights went out.

[John Leonard]

"Our financial system boasts people so bright they've created financial instruments beyond even their own understanding. Now they need to use those talents to help the poorest build assets."

I think David Cameron needs to review the phraseology of this given those in the financial system who have, in part, actively contributed to this recession by using such instruments. If he's talking about them paying penance, then fine, but it doesn't quite read that way at the present.

[Iain]

More 'progressive' Conservative waffle.

[Malcolm Dunn]

Why do people who insult DC mostly not have the courage to post under their real names? Eh THE BAD PLUS?

[RichardJ]

Clearly he is unaware of the pro bono schemes that banks and law firms assist with.

[The Bishop Swine]

I wonder how many bright bankers there are in the UK."Our financial system boasts people so bright they've created financial instruments beyond even their own understanding." that really doesn't sound that promising, and it makes you wonder about the sanity of the person delivering the line. Oh it was Dave sorry Dave but it makes no sense. How can it be clever to create a monstrous loss. Has anybody worked out who profited from these "clever" instruments? I suspect that is the only clever thing about what look like the Fraud of the century to me.

[Praguetory]

This I what I understand being a conservative is all about. In terms of a specific measure to support it, I would support tax relief for high earners who give up some of their time on community work or social action.

[Jake]

Well at least he didn't go on about "investment boutiques" as a means of boosting employment in provincial towns.

There are many problems.A major one is the complete absence of any support by the British political class -includes the Conservatives- for industry and production. More often they actively conspire in industry being closed down,or sold to a foreign firm for the usual treatment of limited production and then closure.

There are many bits of industry and production which could survive very well with a bit of real support but the London based political class simply isn't interested or just plain hostile. There is more to the total employment and wealth picture than the service sector and the City, important though they are.

The real problem is one of attitude by the political class. They have been so intimidated by years PCness and EU laws they just cannot do the blindingly obvious things, preferring, even now, to rabbit on about the property market etc.
There is a real Peronist mentality within the Westminster buble and Mr Cameron shows little sign of recognising it.

[Jack Stone]

What he is saying is quite sensible but there are no concrete proposals to go with any of this. When he talks he says things in such general terms at the end of the day it all means very little.
I don`t think Cameron as the ideas to back up these words because he simply is not a progressive. He says these things not because he truly believes in them but because he sees it as a way of widening the base. Nothing else.

[Iain]

Well perhaps you would care to explain what moral capitalism is? What, instead of companies trading for money, do they trade for moral tokens of something?

[The Bishop's sexy Wife]

"Well perhaps you would care to explain what moral capitalism is? What, instead of companies trading for money, do they trade for moral tokens of something?"

Well in Thatcher's day it meant quoting the bible to back up some very anti-social polices. I hate to be cynical most especially about that nice "Dave", but isn't Moral capitalism an oxymoron some like good-evil or white with just a hint of black.To be constructive perhaps Honda's Swindon operation is experiencing moral capitalism right now.

[Super Blue]

Not what you said three and a quarter years ago, Stone!

[Henry's skint dealer]

Jack Stone may or may not be the original Jack Stone (who was a UKIP troll pretending to be a Tory). In any event he is irritating and tiresome due to his obvious trolling. Can't we please chuck him? Unfortunately there are still people who take him seriously and waste their breath replying to him.

[Helen]

I trust he did not mean sub-prime mortgages.

[rugfish]

I would hope in this context, that he's talking about our economy as the free market. He indicates that capitalism must have the aim to improve peoples lives and not just the capitalists pockets. This "policy" is manifest in his stance on the European Union which would retain our veto over all legislation but it needs to go further with a policy to take us into EFTA.

The strikes occurring now over the Italian workers at the Total site are occurring because the Italian firm has been given a contract and decided to bring their own workforce to Britain. This has led to British workers not even being considered for employment and a flagrant breech of their rights to equal opportunity and resultant unemployment.

This has happened as a result of the kind of capitalism we see in Europe, which has no moral or social consideration. It is a prime example of why capitalism on its own without a social aim, is "immoral", and David Cameron has already said he disagrees with it but not yet how he plans to tackle it.

The fact is, he will be elected as Prime Minister, and he will "seek" to change it, and the European Union will have to change or Britain will have to veto its decisions or leave. -

Social interests, social responsibility and a reckoning that the true aim of capitalism is to promote better standards for all and not the irresponsible few is what he said, so now we have to hear "how".

A firm here can't take its entire workforce to the USA, China or Russia which all quite rightly demand local 'jobs' are created. Perversely, what the EU does is tantamount to lunacy and this gives a compelling insight into how it fails to consider the social aspects of the political decisions it makes, which affect the lives of ordinary people all across Europe, but not in the USA, China or Russia.

In the "globalised world", or more accurately in the "European economy", only the people suffer through EU policies which allow the jobs to be taken away by a foreign firm and be given to foreign workers whilst our skilled workers remain unemployed and without consideration for their own rights to equal opportunity.

Brown is the only leader singing for globalisation !! Obama, and Putin are doing their own thing to save their own economies. Sarkozy will too, likewise others who have their own plans and Gordon Brown is alone on this.

David Cameron MUST stand up for British jobs for British workers and advise the world that HE believes in capitalism, it is our party ideal not Labour's, and only he knows its true aims are to bring properity to all.

Thatcher would have made this very plain. Get on with it David - END the European mess they've created.

[Jack Stone]

ABUSIVE COMMENT OVERWRITTEN.

[The Bishop swine]

"I would support tax relief for high earners who give up some of their time on community work or social action."

So would I, but I would want to see extra tax credits to help lower earners do the same. We really must become an inclusive ONE NATION party and get away from being a fan club of the rich. Of course Working class people are most often the backbone of volunteer work, we should reward the moral class as well as the slick city types with a conscious.

[Mark Anderson]

Only a person with Camerons upbringing and post University holiday through life could conjure up such nonsense as this.
We need a combatitive leader in the Thatcher mould to bring back credibility.
Even I get bored with Camerons schoolboy digs at Brown. WE KNOW BROWN IS USELESS!!
So please stop this one-world nonsense 'Dave' and get back to Tory values and stop wasting time at places like Davos.