Social justice at the heart of the '48 hour push'

Social justice has been at the heart of the leadership debate over the last 48 hours.  Amazing!  On the two days that ballot papers are dropping through the letter boxes of Tory voters the two contenders aren't talking about Europe or immigration; they're brandishing their compassionate credentials.  Yesterday David Davis appealed to the 'wristband generation' and today he's unveiled a video which has his 'good for me, good for my neighbour' message at its heart.  Today David Cameron has said that the elimination of poverty must be one of the Tory Party's top two priorities.  The hope is that the winner of this contest will still be talking about these issues during the real election campaign - in three or four years' time.

Mr Cameron's speech is very substantial.  Here are some of its key themes:

• “The creation of wealth and the elimination of poverty are the central objectives of Conservative economic strategy… Our twin aims as a Party in advancing these propositions over the next four years should be to restore our reputation for economic competence, and to demonstrate that we are in this for everybody, not just the rich.”
• The problems of very poor areas like Lozells in Birmingham are not reflections of race or religion, but economics. 
• But the very poorest people in Britain need “human-scale help” as well as economic incentivisation: “The tragic deficiency in Labour’s bureaucratic approach is the lack of human-scale help for those who are in need, not just of money, but of human support.  Sometimes it’s simple things like the confidence to buy a suit, or knowing the importance of turning up on time to an interview.  A stable family environment, free of drug or alcohol dependency, are the first steps on the ladder to self-sufficiency.  These are not things that a bureaucracy can provide.  Labour’s big bureaucracies terrify.  And they do not reach out a helping hand to those whom they terrify.”
• Five great barriers inhibit wealth creation in Britain: Labour’s fiscal irresponsibility, cultural hostility to capitalism (including the profit motive); European regulation and anti-third world protectionism; inadequate road, rail and modern communications infrastructure; a lack of rigour in education alongside inadequate vocational education.
• On international development Mr Cameron emphasises the need to tackle “killer disease”: “This is an area where a relatively small amount of money, effectively spent, can achieve disproportionate results.  Smallpox was eradicated in 1978 after a worldwide campaign costing just a few million dollars.  Our priority today should be malaria.”
• One of the best sections comes with regard to property rights in the developing world:

“Anyone who has worked in the developing world will have been struck by the ingenuity, energy and dynamism that is there.  Travelling salesmen who walk for a whole day to market.  Small-scale family businesses being run with 24-hour a day commitment.  Shopkeepers buying and selling on a margin of just a few pence.  But despite all this entrepreneurial energy and hard work, these people remain poor.  Why?  It’s not that they don’t own assets.

Despite their poverty, it’s been estimated that poor people around the world own assets worth some $9.3 trillion.  But these assets are not formally recognised as legal property.  So they can’t be used as capital.  The barriers to formal property rights in the developing world are formidable.  According to research carried out by Hernando de Soto’s Institute for Liberty and Democracy, it would take someone almost a year, working full-time, to complete the paperwork to set up a legal one-man sewing business in Peru…and the legal costs would be 31 times the monthly minimum wage.  It would take five years of bureaucratic wrangling, including 77 administrative steps in 31 government offices, to get legal authorisation to build a house in Egypt.

So it is no wonder, for example, that only one per cent of the land in sub-Saharan Africa has been officially registered.  A lack of formal property rights means that poor people can’t use their assets to create wealth… to trade assets outside local circles where people know and trust one another…or to use their assets as collateral for a loan to start a new business and invest for the future.

Without formal property rights, the basic machinery of wealth creation comes grinding to a halt.  Entrepreneurship and risk-taking is stifled; wealth is not created; people stay poor.  We can do something about this.  We could investigate the establishment of a Property Rights Fund, which would encourage the development and formalisation of property rights in poor countries.  Hernando de Soto’s Institute has developed an effective methodology to do this, but his capacity is limited.  A Property Rights Fund could pay for the manpower needed to enable the documentation and codification of property rights in multiple locations simultaneously.”

You can read the full speech by downloading a pdf here.

Comments

[buxtehude]

The speech was really really good. Congratulations to Michael Gove and the team.

Cameron's Q&A was very poor. He can give a speech, but he can't take questions.

The media will rip him apart when he gets out into the big wide world. Very worrying.

[paul d s]

As someone involved in a third world development NGO I thought Cameron's speech was excellent.

Property rights are fundamental to enterprise based solutions to poverty. Africa's problems don't require wristbands to make poverty history, they require a legal framework for capitalism to flourish.

As for Cameron being ripped apart in the Q & A, it looked non-spontaneous to me. As it now appears the Question Time heckling was organised, I can only assume the aggressive questioning was not motivated by goodwill.

[James Maskell]

What issues came up in the questions and how did DC respond? Did he come up with anything new? How was he received by the audience?

[James Hellyer]

Is "paul ds" really Paul Staines, aka Guid Fawkes? (hat tip to Wat Tykler)

I think we should be told!

Incidentally the organsiation of QT heckling has not been proven. That Will Aitken is a DD supporter has been shown, but it does not follow from there that he or his comments were "a plant".

[Selsdon Man]

Paul DS gives his email address as global-growth.org. That is my old friend Paul Staines' web site.

As for Guido Fawkes, only he can enlighten us once he has emerged, phoenix like, from the ashes of Saturday night's bonfires.

[Yet another Anon]

Eliminating poverty or ensuring that all people grow up in stable circumstances is impossible, the main thing that the state can do is to try not to make things worse and avoid attempts at social engineering through the Welfare System.

[Selsdon Man]

Anyone who wants a quick guide about how to help developing countries should read the books of Hernando De Soto.

[Richard Carey]

This is a deep and substantial speech from DC, showing not just a rhetoric but an approach to economic policy that puts a commitment to social justice at its heart.

In view of the previous opinions passed in comments on this blog, a word on policy development. Before anyone jumps on me; I said it is an approach to economic policy. I do believe that it is only right that the details of policy should be decided when the full policy-making apparatus of the CRD and of the wider Party (CPF, Associations, the 1922 etc.) can be brought to bear on the real issues involved. If anyone cares to respond that DC has not resolved detailed policy issues, then perhaps they should be glad that he has not done so through himself and his campaign team alone in the glare of a leadership contest.

[Yet another Anon]

Of course strict punishments for those who transgress the law including torture and execution, increases in resources for the police and across the world open markets and military action against tyrants such as the regime change in Iraq of course can make a difference, the point is though that there will always be imperfect parents, imperfect employers and it is impossible for the state to micro-manage such things.

[Yet another Anon]

Abolishing all state subsidies for agriculture and industry and adopting Free Trade is the best solution towards International Development, and one way of achieving this would be to leave Fortress Europe.

[Selsdon Man]

Trade not aid! Where is Ragnar Danneskjold when we need him?

[Derek]

If there are any doubts about DCs ability to respond to close questioning, these can be resolved when we see him interviewed by Jonathan Dimbleby, and then by Jeremy Paxman. An essential rite of passage for any would-be leader of the party in this day and age.

[loyal_tory]

I agree with Derek. If you can't take the heat on Paxman then leader of HM Opposition is the wrong job for you.

Incidentally, the pre-Cameron speech spin seems to be a little different from the actual speech itself. Is this a decision to change tactics or a change of substance, poor media spin, or a case of telling the media one thing and a CPS audience another? Does anyone know?

[loyal_tory]

Sorry that should read from Paxman on Newsnight. On the CPS speech, The Independent was told that excessive spending was one of the five barriers to "the creation of wealth." In the speech that became "Labour's tax-and-spend." Vaguness returned on tax policy, however. With taxes "on jobs and wealth creation" to be reduced--presumably in line with the "sharing the proceeds of growth" formula outlined previously. Perhaps we should ask what that means at the hustings. The implication on Question Time was that Cameron meant business, but not personal taxation.

[pete]

What no comments!? ITN reveals that the Times headline tomorow is that Davies has surged ahead, and the betting markets have moved from 14:1 to 2.5:1 in 20 minutes.
Is this a freak poll, a reflection that opionion outside the Notting Hill beltway is not in line with the media line, or another dramitic change in events? Answers on a blog please.

[Derek]

The idea of registering property rights sounds a good idea, but the system would have to be approved in each country, and part of the problem is probably due to a lack of literacy among poor property owners. It sounds like a complex process to set up.

[Tom Ainsworth]

Pete,
the betting does seem to have moved dramatically. I'm as much at a loss as to why as you are...

[Cllr Graham Smith]

IMHO we should all be saying a really big thank you to Tim Montgomerie. He has hugely influenced the Conservative Party agenda over the past several years (indeed, he still does) in order to promote social justice. Well done Tim!

[Editor]

That's kind Graham but the real hero of the social justice movement has been my boss at the Centre for Social Justice - IDS.

Whatever we may think of his merits and demerits as party leader he has been a faithful and heartfelt champion for the hard-pressed people and communities he focused on as leader.

Some politicians can make more of an impact out of leadership positions. If the party stays on the one nation course IDS' long-term impact on the Tory mission will be enormous.

[wasp]

This was very good from Cameron much more considered and in depth.

I hope he makes the most of this at the hustings to come.

[Hank J Bloodsucker III]

Hey what's all this paintywaist liberal commie-talk about social justice? Socialist injustice is what I call it! And a curb on growth! Shame on you Mr Editor!

[Gareth]

The phrase 'social justice' in the hands of IDS & Co. is really a return to the values of Victorian charity and the deserving and underserving poor. It's an agenda driven by the evangelical religious right and largely promotes the privatisation of vital public services and their replacement by religious charities. To characterise this agenda as 'one nation' is to mock true one nation tories like Iain MacLeod.

[EU Serf]

I am very happy that DC seems to have heard about De Soto.

I second Selsdon Man's recommendation to read those books.

[Jack Stone]

The party will only appeal to voters beyond its core vote when it convinces people it as put the past behind it and become more modern and in tune with todays Britain.
I am afriad that David Davis with his tax cuts and Euro referendums just looks terribly old fashioned and if its talking to a Britain of the nineteen eighties not the twenty first century and you just can`t see his message appealing to anyone but the most loyal Conservative.
David Cameron in contrast is looking new, fresh and modern and capable of making the party look like its talking about and living in todays Britain. The polls and evidence of media interviews show that his message is appealing to not only to floating voters but those that regularly vote for other parties.
You know at the end of the day the choice in this election is about what the members want.
Do they want to wake up yet again on the friday after the next election and feel yet again that gut wretching feeling of defeat that the thought Labour are once again running the country they love or feeling that ecsastic feeling that comes with victory.

[Ian Sider]

Hey Gareth, do you have any evidence for your assertions? Have you, for instance, read 'There Is Such As Thing As Society?' Have you familiarised yourself with concepts such as Oliver Letwin's 'conveyor belt to crime'? How can you simultaneously privatise a public service and replace it with a charity? Even if such a thing were possible, have you seen a single utterance from 'IDS and co' that might suggest that this is what they want to do?