Charles Moore - soothscribe of the month

A pleasant surprise - I have had Moore pegged as a prematurely aged bore and generally do not pay much attention to what he writes because I expect it to the the same old same old. This one is so cogent and on the money that I will pay more attention in future.

There is a lot to be said for more modest, low-key government. We do not need to hear from our leaders every day of our lives. We are all sick of things being said, rather than done. But, in one respect, Tony Blair was right. If you do not proclaim your message, the space is filled, not by respectful silence, but by your opponents.

He might have added that silence permits your opponents to make fools of themselves, which they certainly have been doing. But it's also true that the chattering classes need to - well - chatter, and that after the frenzied determination of the Blair-Brown regime to dominate the news cycle, the advent of low key government has had an effect on the journopukes akin to junkies losing their dealer.

The complaint is not that the Coalition is wasting time, but that it is not explaining itself. This is to do with the personality of David Cameron. He is an exceptionally clear public speaker. But, being a rational, civilised and slightly reserved person, rather than a missionary or an actor, he makes the mistake of thinking that, once you've said something in politics, you do not need to say it again (and again, and again).

Again, I can see this is the case from a journopuke's perspective; but if you're looking to make fundamental changes to the substance of government, a fundamental change of style seems a good place to start. Journopukes have a 24-hour horizon, and one of the most impressive things about the Cameron-Clegg duo is that they are playing their hand long.

The same people who worry about Coalition weakness worry about "fairness". They say it is a word which always involves a financial demand: it spells trouble, so leave it alone. But I say that "fairness" – unlike the word "equality", which is fraught with danger both for conservatives and liberals – is a fundamental British concept that cannot be ceded to opponents.

I know this is what most Brits, regardless of their political leanings, believe to be true, and Moore commendably emphasizes what a philosophical chasm divides "fairness" from fundamentally unfair communist "equality". But I suspect that Moore underestimates the success of the Labour pukes in blurring the line between what are mutually incompatible concepts. Spiteful, levelling envy is more of a defining national characteristic than perhaps it is possible for a British patriot to admit.

It's the eloquent conclusion that gets Moore the award. What oft was thought but ne'er so well expressed:

It is precisely because our dreadful welfare system has been falsely represented as "fair" for more than half a century that it has resisted reform so successfully. It is not fair that the poor are trapped and the enterprising are penalised. When that is at last understood, the heart (an organ which the Tories are always supposed to lack) will finally go out of socialism.