Our Society, Your Life is a 2007 policy statement for theConservative Party,[1] launched shortly afterDavid Cameron becameleader of the party – thenin Opposition – in 2005, followinga leadership election in that year.
It has been seen by some, such as Richard Kelly (head of politics atManchester Grammar School[2]) as atriangulation of Conservative ideology with that ofNew Labour, and linking into the idea of theThird Way. Kelly says New Labour "sought to reconcile ... the embedded ideals of Labour with the effects ofThatcherism". Kelly also says thatOur Society, Your Life "echoed[Tony] Blair's rejection of the Thatcherite view that there is 'no such thing' as society":[1]
... the big idea on which we'll build our plan for government ... issocial responsibility. The idea that there is such a thing as society, it's just not the same thing as the state. Social responsibility means that every time we see a problem, we don't just ask what government can do. We ask what people can do, what society can do.[3]
Instead Cameron supported what Kelly describes as theBurkean "little platoons": the network of families, churches and voluntary organisations which supposedly bind a society together.[1]
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