An amazing speech by Conservative British Prime Minister David Cameron

 I came across this revolutionary and inspiring speech by British Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron
on TED.    The speech,  "The Next Age of Government"  is a TED talk  given in February 2010,  several months before Cameron became prime minister.     He proposes some radical ideas for government.   Here is the transcript of the speech.

Proceeding from the premise that governments in the West are faced with incredible cost pressures that limit their ability to expand programs as a means of improving the quality of life,  he proposes harnessing the intelligence of information and communications technology to reshape how government attacks its job.

With a focus on things that underlie well-being, such as family relationships, friendship, community and values,
Cameron then suggests that political philosophy, political thinking and the information revolution can remake politics, government and public services for the better.

Some of the ideas:

1.  Conservative political philosophy:   Give people more power and control over their lives.  Give them
     more choice.   Connect this with the communications and information revolution.

2.  Conservative political philosophy:   Go with the grain of human nature assisted by the latest knowledge in    
     behavioral economics.

2.   Political thinking:   Emphasize transparency, choice and accountability.  Again this should be connected to
     IT and Web2.0

Read/listen to the short speech for the details.   It is just an introduction.   The premise of not enough money is questionable.  Most left-leaning sorts would say we need to tax corporations more and that will provide gobs of money for improved social services.   I question whether more money and more programs fixes things.
Look at Vancouver's downtown  East side,   Nunavut and the Aboriginal situation in Canada and poverty in general.   How much money have governments at all levels spent to alleviate poverty and how much have things improved?   Compare with 50 years ago.  

Unfortunately,  David Cameron left out reforms to the democratic process in his speech and successfully saw nixed a couple of months ago a fundamental change to this.   I hope that an improvement to the political process married with IT and Web2.0  is a part of this thesis.