TOP 100 ENGLAND SITES
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| Michelin Guide 2010: UK has more starred restaurants than ever before UK has more starred restaurants than ever before. telegraph.co.uk |
Rights for NHS patients now law Rights for NHS patients to be treated with dignity and respect are now enshrined in law for the first time, ministers have announced. telegraph.co.uk |
Ministry of Defence 'not fit for purpose' claims former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown The Ministry of Defence has been in steady decline for five years, the former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown has said. telegraph.co.uk |
Cameron tells us Britain is broken – but not how to fix it | Editorial A pair of boys torture two of their peers to the brink of death just to pass the time – the horror of the thing almost defies comprehension. But the facts of the Edlington case also command attention. The society where such a thing happens must search itself for explanations.That needn't mean condemning society in political terms. After the boys' trial last week, David Cameron was quick to extrapolate widespread social dereliction from their case, and blame the government for it. British society, Mr Cameron says, is "broken".It is probably asking too much of an opposition leader that he refrain from riding waves of moral outrage. But Mr Cameron should be careful how he describes the country he wants to govern. He needs to be more precise about where the fractures lie and how Conservative remedies will mend them.By some measures, Britain is in better social shape than ever. The government points to falling crime rates, a trend confirmed by figures published last week.The average person is less likely today to be robbed, burgled, assaulted or murdered than a decade ago. But the statistical average conceals pockets of real social decay. It does not describe the prolonged reign of terror that the Edlington boys inflicted on their neighbours before being taken into care. Nor does it describe the long chain of individual and institutional dysfunction that led to the murder of Baby P in Haringey in 2008.The Conservative leader is right to identify a systemic cultural and economic malaise in parts of Britain. But this does not mean society as a whole is broken, rather that a relatively small social segment has become detached from the mainstream. Restoring civic pride and enterprise to those communities is a vast undertaking. But it should be viewed as an obligation on a mostly successful society to rescue those left behind. It does not need to be couched as a denunciation of national mores.But Mr Cameron's approach is constrained by the ideological framework he applies to these issues, as expressed in a number of recent speeches. His address to the Conservative conference last autumn made clear his belief that government action is more likely to be part of the problem than the solution. In a lecture last November he sketched a history of poverty in Britain that ignored the 1979-1997 Conservative government, suggesting he does not consider the fate of large-scale industry in the 1980s to be a significant factor in community breakdown. And in a speech earlier this month Mr Cameron asserted that "what matters most to a child's life chances is not the wealth of their upbringing but the warmth of their parenting".In policy terms that has led to an orthodox conservative response: voluntary groups are better at intervention than the state; wealth redistribution is not a solution to social dysfunction; marriage is the foundation stone of a happy family and should be encouraged by the tax system.Those are contentious propositions. The last one is disputed even within the Tory party, on ideological grounds (reducing government intervention should also mean staying out of marital arrangements); on practical grounds (there's no way of subsidising marriage without perverse unintended consequences); and fiscal grounds (tax breaks for marriage are a waste of money in austere times). But the biggest problem with Mr Cameron's plans is not coherence, but scale. If the problems are as universal as he describes, he must surely be aiming for a massive social transformation, akin to a moral renaissance.But how, given his eschewal of state solutions, will he do that? What institutions, funds, people will drive change if not local government, departmental budgets, schools and social workers? Will it all come from volunteers? What if their contribution is dwarfed by the task?Without the answers to those questions there is little to distinguish between a sincere pang of social conscience, which no doubt Mr Cameron feels, and a short-term election tactic: stirring up exaggerated fear and confecting righteous indignation to undermine the government. That is a well-established political technique, albeit a shabby one.There is a black hole in the middle of Conservative social policy; a deficit between the big rhetoric and the little ideas.Mr Cameron is running out of time to plug the gap.Edlington attacksDavid Cameronguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
The Duchess of Cornwall challenged to game of Wii bowling at care home Duchess of Cornwall celebrates charity birthday - with a game of Wii. telegraph.co.uk |