Cameron ducks the issue

I expect Cameron's speech ticked a lot of boxes for a lot of people yesterday. He covered just about all the things you'd want a Conservative leader to cover, but for all that it was just rhetoric and, to be frank, empty rhetoric.

I still can't understand why anyone doesn't pick up on the fact that he claims he wants to end the quangocracy - and then goes on to say that one of the first things he will do is create yet another quango (the Office of Budget Responsibility!) stuffed full of more unelected and unaccountable faceless bureaucrats.

Even if Cameron were serious about making the difference he says he wants to make, there remains one massive hurdle to much of his ability to do that which I can not recall him mentioning in his speech. The European Union.

Much of the quangocracy that has taken a grip in Britain over the last 20 or 30 years is down to the EU. Much of what Cameron claims he wants to do will be picked over and blocked by Brussels. This single issue is the one that will prevent Cameron - or any other leader - from doing what is necessary to restore Britain's health as a nation state. Until he addresses that issue, all the words are meaningless.