Conservative party leader David Cameron gave a speech in 2007 on social justice which is remembered as the “hug a hoodie” moment. In it, he laid out the foundations of what would become the “big society” social programme and called for more compassion towards young people. The speech was written by his adviser Danny Kruger – the MP who has just defected to Nigel Farage’s Reform party.
Back then, Kruger, Philip Blond and Steve Hilton were seen as the key intellectual forces behind compassionate conservatism. But we now realise that the big society was really informed by a much darker vision of society than the hug a hoodie speech implied.
It was based on the belief that the country had been hollowed out by the moral vacuousness of governments (both left and right) since the 1960s. The picture the Conservatives painted even at the time was not one of optimism and progress but of crisis and decline.
