A f lying start but the toughest test is ahead

ONE hundred days after throwing off the shackles of the Lib Dems, David Cameron has injected a new sense of purpose into a government that was paralysed by Coalition infighting, while laying the groundwork for what could be a great reforming administration.

On the economy, he has put the emphasis firmly on making work pay, while pressing ahead with the vital task of redressing the imbalance between the bloated state and the wealth-producing private sector. But if Mr Cameron hopes to be remembered among great statesmen, there are other areas in which he must raise his game.

Take foreign aid. In these times of muchneeded cutbacks at home, it has become simply intolerable for the Government to splash out £12billion a year abroad – far more than it knows how to spend – just to meet an arbitrary target. Mr Cameron must swallow his pride and stop this appalling waste. Or consider the disastrous Human Rights Act. It’s more than five years since the Tories promised to replace it with a British Bill of Rights. So how disappointing that we’re still waiting even f or a timetable.

Then there’s one other issue, perhaps the most important of our time, on which Mr Cameron has so far failed to impress – the crisis over Britain’s relationship with the EU and its implications for mass migration. Indeed, his challenge was vividly illustrated by t his week’s photographs from Calais, the Greek islands and Macedonia, showing vast crowds of migrants, determined at all costs to reach Europe’s richer nations.

In his first 100 days, Mr Cameron’s ideas for stemming the tide have been frankly footling, while hi s pussy- footing negotiations with the EU appear to be getting nowhere fast.

Without a tougher stand, as next week’s migration figures are expected to confirm, he has no hope whatever of realising his manifesto ambition to cut the net inflow to tens of thousands from its current official rate of more than 300,000.

As for Mr Cameron’s dealings with Brussels, wasn’t his worst mistake to insist that ministers must campaign for the side he chooses in the referendum?

With that uncharacteristically foolish diktat, he has surely weakened his hand in the talks at the same time as effectively inviting his party to split.

All in all, however, the first all-Tory Government for 18 years has made an impressive start. But there is a huge amount still to achieve. Mr Cameron must get moving. With the election victory still fresh and Labour in disarray, he will never have a better chance.