Cameron talks conservatism with Schwarzennegger

Cameron crosses the Atlantic to talk conservatism with California governor, Arnold Schwarzennegger.

Friday, 12, Oct 2007 12:00

Conservative leader David Cameron met with fellow centre-right politician and California governor Arnold Schwarzennegger yesterday.

Mr Cameron talked with the former action star about crime, gun culture and green issues, and their links in the Californian state capital, Sacramento.

The governor appeared by satellite-link during the Conservative conference in Blackpool a fortnight ago, where he had been due to speak in person.

The transatlantic conservative meeting, follows a speech by Mr Cameron making further criticisms of Labour's leadership style at the Google Zeitgeist Conference in San Francisco.

The opposition leader talked of the "the politics of responsibility" in a new "post-bureaucratic" era of public services.

He said politicians needed the help of the technology sector in "reducing the demand for government spending, and the demand for regulation."

In an allusion to ‘nanny state’ culture in Britain, Mr Cameron said: "I don’t think responsibility is something you can impose on people . . . And the more you try to do things for people, the less responsible they become."

He also challenged politicians to recognise the impact a consensual approach to public policy would make.

Mr Cameron told the conference: "In Britain, there is a vast amount of information currently held or sold by the public sector that, if made freely available, would unleash social and commercial innovation.

"Neighbourhoods getting together to commission local services. Social entrepreneurs setting up in competition to existing public service providers. And citizens being able to make informed choices about the options available to them.

"We have barely begun to see the possibilities of a truly bottom-up approach to public policy and that’s because the political world has been slow to realise the scale of the change that’s been happening."