Downing Street has just issued the full text of David Cameron’s “big society” speech in Liverpool this morning. One thing that immediately stands out, as Andrew Sparrow notes, is how similar Cameron and Nick Clegg now sound.
Here’s Clegg at the pair’s first press conference:
For me, that is what liberalism is all about: ensuring that everyone has the chance, no matter who they are and where they are from, to be the person they want to be. To live the life they want to live. You can call it fairness. You can call it responsibility. You can call it liberalism. Whatever words you use, the change it will make to your life is the same.
And here’s Cameron today:
Let me briefly explain what the “big society” is and why it is such a powerful idea.You can call it liberalism. You can call it empowerment. You can call it freedom. You can call it responsibility. I call it the “big society”.
There has never been a Conservative prime minister, not even Margaret Thatcher, willing to speak of “liberalism” in such positive terms. Not all in Cameron’s party, particularly those on its social conservative wing, will be comfortable with his embrace of what is, after all, a rival ideology.
It all points to the fact, as I have repeatedly argued, that Cameron views the coalition not as an alliance of convenience, but as a vehicle to realign British politics. Those who speculate that the Tories are considering a snap election to “dump” the Lib Dems couldn’t be more wrong.