Getting there slowly

The PM goes on holiday looking worn down, because he is. His biggest single difficulty is that, even though his puzzled friends keep asking for a unifying theme or new vision, it will not come because it cannot. Brown8217;s programme was honed in opposition and then implemented after 1997 and8230; there is virtually nothing he wanted to do that was blocked by Blair. Rather, it was Brown blocking. So now he is spent intellectually and the thought that Labour has had its turn is the unmentionable truth underpinning defeatist talk. None of this diminishes the scale of Cameron8217;s achievement. For some time, the Tory leader struggled to get traction for an alternative theory of the state and now he is winning that struggle. Where Brown believes government is the best, or only, agent capable of delivering significant improvement, the Cameroons look to free individuals and organisations8230;

These non-state actors will be less wasteful, more responsive to the needs of those they serve and, as decades and billions of pounds spent on big statism8230; suggests, the alternative is worth a try8230; every sensible British consumer is shedding debt where possible and making adjustments to outgoings. We are approaching a point at which the British work out that the one organisation declining to engage in this process of looking for value for money is their government.

Excerpted from a comment by Iain Martin in 8216;The Daily Telegraph8217;