Cameron warns Tories to offer ‘more inspiring vision’ or slip backwards

DAVID CAMERON has called on his former colleagues to provide “a more inspiring vision” of modern Conservatism as he warned the party risks “slipping backwards” by moving away from the liberal agenda he championed as leader.

In his first major interview since leaving Downing Street last year, the former Prime Minister spoke of his disappointment at the loss of Conservative seats in last month’s election, and urged the party to continue being “open, liberal [and] tolerant”. Speaking to the

– which is now edited by his fellow Tory moderniser George Osborne – he argued that the party can only succeed “if it is a party of the future”.

“It is very important that the Conservative Party doesn’t slip backward... modernisation isn’t an event. It is a process,” he said.

The interview followed a board meeting of patrons of the National Citizen Service (NCS) scheme, which Mr Cameron founded as one of his first acts in Government.

He told the paper: “We on the centre-right side of the argument have to have just as inspiring a vision – a more inspiring vision– of how you build not just a strong economy but a strong society and a better life.

“You don’t win the argument in favour of free enterprise, free markets, choice and liberal democracy and then pack up and go home... You have to win the argument in every generation.

“The reason I wanted to lead the Conservative Party back in 2005 was that I wanted us to be more than ‘the economics party’... with the rough edges knocked off.

“I wanted us to have a genuinely inspiring vision about what a great country and what a great society we could be.”