Yeah, that’s my take. So WTF is Cameron up to?
Sorry for being thick, but Cameron is a conservative. So… what’s his angle? Is he just showing what a deep guy he is? Or does he think there is a thin slice of the electorate who will nod approvingly?
It’s possible he thinks it might pick him up a few votes from the more (small c) conservative section of the population, although I don’t know - they’d probably vote Conservative anyway. Or perhaps, as Mk VII suggests, he’s just responding in kind to some seemingly unnecessary needling from the Lib Dems over gun control and disestablishment. Nobody that I’ve spoken to actually gives a shit about those issues.
I actually hold a similar view to the one SanVito expressed earlier in the thread. His notion of a “Big Society” is one where the state provides less help to those in need, and communities organisations and charities pick up the slack. Since many of those organisations are religious in nature, especially on a local level, he is attempting to reassure the skeptical that they will actually do so.
This is a tough sell, since even those groups who would be willing to help out often lack the resources to do so, and there has been, at least for the past few decades, a widespread view that helping the needy is something we do collectively through taxes and government.
It’s a risky strategy, of course: politicians who go on about religion here are often regarded with a mixture of concern and ridicule.
I think it might be because senior Anglicans have been speaking out against Tory policies lately. When it comes to “the Big Society” and having stuff run by voluntary organisations, some CofE groups have spoken out about how much they’re having to provide, and how much it has increased under Dave’s govt. The Archbishop of Canterbury doesn’t seem to like Dave at all.
In Cameron’s own constituency, the police were called just because the Bishop of Oxford tried to deliver a letter about food poverty to his own MP. [url=]Bishop of Oxford barred from PM's office | Daily Mail Online Cameron’s office deny having known about this beforehand, but the leader was a Bishop, and it’s not like you can fail to recognise a man of the cloth and know it’s not exactly a gang with guns.
Dave’s not in favour with the CofE right now and is trying to change that. They’re a significant voting block (especially given their average age - makes them more likely to vote) that either might not turn out at all, might turn to UKIP or something else right-wing, or might even turn to Labour sometimes.