The new 'champion of progressive ideals'? Cameron's Conservative Party: poverty, family policy and welfare reform.

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The new 'champion of progressive ideals'? Cameron's Conservative Party: poverty, family policy and welfare reform.

It is the Conservative Party that is the champion of progressive ideals in Britain today ... If you care about poverty, if you care about inequality ... forget about the Labour Party ... If you count yourself a progressive, a true progressive, only we can achieve real change. (Cameron, 2008b)

In this cheeky piece of political cross-dressing, David Cameron gave notice that he intended to move his troops firmly on to Labour political territory. He underlined the centrality of the issues of poverty and inequality to the new Conservative agenda. In the same piece he wrote that social justice was one of the 'priorities for the modern Conservative Party'.

In this article we explore this apparent revolution in modern Conservative Party thinking and how Cameron's Conservatives have identified poverty, in particular, as a major problem to be addressed by 'true progressives'. We then analyse their diagnosis of the problem and their prescription for change, based on statements and policy documents available at the time of writing (early March 2010).

Recognition of the problem: the rehabilitation of the 'p' and 'i' words

Considerable credit for the recognition of poverty as a problem, and one with which the modern Conservative Party must engage, lies with its former leader, Iain Duncan Smith. During a visit to Glasgow's Easterhouse in 2002, Duncan Smith underwent a Damascene awakening when, he explained, he first understood 'the sheer desperation of the lives of people on society's margins' (Brindle, 2006; see also Derbyshire, 2010).

When he was replaced as leader, Duncan Smith established the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), with a number of members of the Conservative front bench on its advisory board. Its Executive Director, Philippa Stroud, describes the CSJ as the 'heartbeat and conscience' of the Tory party (Gentleman, 2009). The CSJ has hosted the Social Justice Policy Group (SJPG), chaired by Duncan Smith, which was commissioned by David Cameron 'to make policy recommendations to the Conservative Party on issues of social justice' (SJPG, 2006a, 2). This resulted in two reports: Breakdown Britain (2006a) and Breakthrough Britain (2007). In his 2009 party conference speech, Cameron praised Duncan Smith as 'the man who has dedicated himself to the cause of social justice' and announced that, if the Conservatives were to win the election, he would be given responsibility 'for bringing together all our work to help mend the broken society' (Cameron, 2009a) (1).

The clearest statement of the Tories' rethinking on poverty can be found in one of the 'state of the nation' reports summarised in Breakdown Britain. It was drawn up by the Economic Failure and Welfare Dependency Working Group chaired by Greg Clark MP. Despite its title, Economic Dependency (of which more later), the report explicitly distances Conservative thinking from a number of key tenets of the Thatcher years. Duncan Smith observes in his foreword,

In modern times, poverty has been a difficult issue for the Conservative Party to deal with. However, as this Report makes clear, it is too important an issue to be left to the Labour Party. All forms of poverty--absolute and relative--must be dealt with. (SJPG, 2006b, 3) The report itself explicitly embraces a relative definition of poverty:

We should now say explicitly: Poverty must be defined in relation to changing social norms. We should reject completely the notion that poverty can be defined in absolute terms alone. Relative poverty matters because it separates the poor from the mainstream of society. (SJPG, 2006b, 6) And it quotes senior Conservative Oliver Letwin's acceptance, in 2005, that 'Of course, inequality matters. Of course, it should be an aim to narrow the gap between rich and poor' (SJPG, 2006b, 6).

David Cameron himself has referred frequently to poverty and, to a lesser extent, social justice and inequality in his pronouncements. An early example is his Scarman Lecture, in which he called poverty 'an economic waste and a moral disgrace'. Echoing the SJPG, he explained that

we need to think of poverty in relative terms--the fact that some people lack those things which others in society take for granted. So I want this message to go out loud and clear: the Conservative Party recognises, will measure and will act on relative poverty. (Cameron, 2006) The following year, in a speech entitled 'Making British Poverty History' he declared, 'let us ...

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