David Cameron acknowledged his debt to Iain Duncan Smith as he stood in a church in the East End of Glasgow to deliver his address on personal morality. Mr Duncan Smith, in turn, credits the deprivation he found on the estates of Gallowgate for inspiring his “modern, compassionate Conservatism”.

It was, therefore, the perfect setting for Mr Cameron – who adopted the slogan as his own – finally to spell out its full meaning. Impelled by the need to decontaminate the Conservative brand, the Tory leader laid the emphasis initially on modernity and compassion. Believing his reputation for those two elements is assured, Mr Cameron thinks the time is right to emphasise his Conservatism.

In flagging the significance of yesterday’s speech, the Tory leader hinted at both the length of its gestation and his trepidation at making a moral pronouncement. “The time has come for me to speak about something that has been troubling me for a long time,” he said, adding: “I have not found the words to say it sensitively.”

What followed was an intensively crafted passage that seeks to re-establish public morality and expressly tilts the balance from the State to the individual. Steve Hilton, his chief strategist, is understood to have taken the lead in shaping what senior aides acknowledge is one of Mr Cameron’s most important speeches to date.

When first elected Mr Cameron chose to talk only of social responsibility. He exhorted businesses or charities to take on more of a role in helping to change society, leaving the question of individual responsibility largely unanswered. Indeed he laid himself open to “hug-a-hoody” headlines in seeking to explain the behaviour of some young people.

The wave of public disgust at the murder in August of Garry Newlove prompted Mr Cameron to adopt a darker tone and begin to develop his theme that Britain has a broken society. It was only yesterday that the Tory leader showed a glint of the steel he would deploy as prime minister. Whether it is the benefit claimant denied payments for failing to look for work or the teenager jailed for carrying a knife, Mr Cameron wants to be able to say that he was clear about his intentions.

“This is about signalling very clearly how serious we are in addressing social breakdown and about securing a mandate for the very radical things that we want to do to heal the divisions,” one senior Cameron aide said.

Labour will, no doubt, seek to portray his remarks as an echo of John Major’s ill-fated attempt to drive Britain “back to basics”. It is an assault he is expecting and one that is dismissed by his team as “ancient history”.

In any case, they say, Mr Cameron is most keen that individuals take responsibility not only for themselves but also for others. In one key passage, the Tory leader delivers a coded rebuke to Boris Johnson, who suggested last week that people should not intervene to prevent antisocial behaviour.

“There is a danger of becoming quite literally a demoralised society, where nobody will tell the truth any more about what is good and bad, right and wrong. That is why children are growing up without boundaries, thinking they can do as they please, and why no adult will intervene to stop them – including, often, their parents. If we are going to get any where near solving some of these problems, that has to stop,” he said.

As today’s poll shows, there is little tactical imperative for Mr Cameron to apppear tough. His party is preferred by 40 per cent to deal with crime and antisocial behaviour, compared with only 20 per cent for Labour – double the lead of last December.

Indeed, it is the strength of the Tories’ position that is allowing Mr Cameron the space to seek to change the terms of political debate. A by-elec-tion in a deprived Labour heartland in which there is no pressure for a Conservative win provided the perfect opportunity to link and develop the themes of responsibility and of the need to heal a broken society.

Politicians and society

“I grew up in the Thirties with an unemployed father. He didn’t riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept looking till he found it”
Norman Tebbit, after 1981 riots. Often shortened to “On yer bike”

“There’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first”
Margaret Thatcher, interviewed in Woman’s Own in 1987

“It is time to get back to basics: to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family, and not shuffling it off on the State.”
John Major, 1993 speech to Tory party conference

“We need to tackle this problem in a concerted way; tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”
Tony Blair, 1993, launching a policy document on antisocial behaviour

“We know we have a shared responsibility; that we’re all in this together; that there is such a thing as society – it’s just not the same as the State”
David Cameron, leadership election, September 2005

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