Tory leader David Cameron cites JFK as he unveils his 'Big Society' blueprint for Britain's future

Published on Tuesday 13 April 2010 23:14

DAVID Cameron invoked the spirit of John F Kennedy yesterday as he laid out his vision of citizens getting together to mend "Britain's broken society".

Launching his party's manifesto at the disused Battersea power station in London, Mr Cameron outlined his belief in "big society" as opposed to "big government", which he described as a 40-year-old con played by politicians on the public.

He described a big society as one "where people ask not 'who's going to make things better?' but 'how can I – and how can we together – make things better?'"

The 43-year-old Tory leader added: "As a great American president once said, 'Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country'."

The line was from JFK's famous inauguration speech in 1961, made when he, too, was 43.

Mr Cameron presented his manifesto in the form of an invitation to the British public, appealing to the electorate to join him in government and to make the decisions that would take Britain out of the economic crisis and help sort out its problems.

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The launch came as two new polls put the Conservative lead over Labour at between three and five points.

Mr Cameron insisted he wanted his message to be "unremittingly positive", despite the threats of drastic cuts and possible tax rises that he will have to make if he wins the election. And he said he wanted "sunshine to win the day".

The Conservative manifesto proposals – which came in a 130-page hardback book, compared with Labour's 76-page document – included asking people to join community groups, giving them the power to reverse council tax rises, suggesting that parents set up their own schools with state money and persuading health workers to set up co-operatives to take control of the services they provide.

He said he wanted fewer politicians at Westminster, including a cut of six or seven in the number of Scottish MPs, but more power to be held by people locally, so they could decide on things that happened in their communities.

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South of the Border, this would include being able to have community purchases of post offices and pubs if they were under threat of closure and even taking planning powers away from councils.

Under Tory plans, the public would also have the power to sack their MPs in recall elections and, in England, veto council tax rises.

In a period of economic and political gloom, Mr Cameron painted himself as "the idealist" in British politics, promising that, unlike the Liberal Democrats, he would not disappoint because he could win power.

With the catchphrase "we are in this together" liberally sprinkled throughout his speech and those of his shadow cabinet colleagues – as well as featuring on the blue T-shirts of activists at the launch – he tried to inspire the British people to a common purpose.

And, as well as linking his vision to that of JFK, he went on paraphrase Barack Obama, by slowly enunciating: "Yes we can make things better."

However, when asked for details of what his policies would mean, Mr Cameron avoided discussing where the cuts might fall, only confirming that they would be "faster and deeper" than Labour's.

Labour took a sceptical view of Mr Cameron's appeal to the public to pull together, suggesting it was code for people to "do it yourself".

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Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, Labour's chairman of election strategy, said: "When the Tories say 'we're all in this together', what they really mean is 'you're on your own'.

"This is not an agenda for empowerment – it's an agenda for abandonment."

He went on: "At the very moment when people need help and support, the Tories believe that government support should be cut.

"Look behind the gloss and it's the same old Tory message: sink or swim, you're on your own."

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg described the Tory programme as a "manifesto of style over substance".

He seized upon the Tories' decision to launch their manifesto at a disused power station.

Speaking at a campaign tour event in Bradford, he said: "You can't trust the Conservatives.

"They have just launched a manifesto in a power station that doesn't generate power. It's a manifesto of style over substance.

"You can't trust the Conservatives when they want to give tax breaks to double-millionaires, not tax breaks to everybody else.

"You can't trust the Conservatives when they don't want to clamp down on the bonuses of greedy bankers.

"You can't trust the Conservatives when they don't really want to clean out the corrupt state of politics in Westminster."

The SNP took umbrage at the pictures and maps produced in the Tories' manifesto, attacking them for leaving the Western and Northern Isles off the main picture in the document.

Angus MacNeil, SNP candidate for Na h-Eileanan an Iar, said: "This is less 'in this together' and more 'except for voters in Scotland'.

"The Tory campaign is crumbling in Scotland – from getting Edinburgh and Aberdeen confused, to their candidates' colourful pictures and now their exclusion of Scotland's islands from this election.

"The Conservative manifesto also included a map that showed Scotland shrunken and the south-east of England inflated.

The Office of National Statistics map was based on economic productivity, but opponents suggested it might reflect the proportion of the Tory vote, with it dwindling the further north you went.