Appealing to common sense is a strong tactic, but it won’t solve every problem

The Tory manifesto put its faith in a sense of national decency, but how widely shared is its concept of ‘the greater good’?

There are two entirely different ways of talking about politics. There is the professional way, which involves idealised programmes of Left and Right, code words for contentious ideas (“social fairness” to mean wealth redistribution, for example) and tactical inventions such as the “centre ground”. And then there is the other way: the one that most people use to discuss their opinions.

There are some words, such as “fair”, which are particularly problematic, having almost diametrically opposite meanings in the two languages. The adjective “fair” is often used by real people, whereas politicians and their hangers-on talk about “fairness” as an abstract noun. I shall return to this point.

Sometimes, though, the specialised dialect of the professionals overlaps quite conveniently with popular understanding. This has happened at various memorable points in recent British history: during the early Thatcher years, for example, and again in the very early Blair years.

It is when the two languages become so far apart that the vocabulary being used by most of the political class is utterly disconnected from everyday conversation that a crisis of confidence occurs in the whole system. That is where we are now, according to the Conservative (or should I say the Theresa May?) manifesto.

The Prime Minister has bet the farm on this proposition: that most people are uninterested in the obsessions of ideological purists and simply want a government that understands their social instincts, identifies with their moral priorities and respects their concerns, however inconsistent with grand political theory they may be.

Her message is, on the face of it, straightforward: we understand that working people want to get on with their lives and do not care much for the totems of traditional debate about the size and role of government. They are socially conscientious, but do not have a grand philosophy of society. They are irritated, even sometimes disgusted, by the “tribal view” of politics and would prefer a government that worked for the “country as a whole”.

There is a danger in offering this common sense, rather anti-intellectual approach that you might end up insulting the electorate. Don’t worry your little heads about all those grandiose concepts and philosophical systems; we’ll make our decisions about the size of the state and the limits of free markets based on what we think will suit your domestic needs. You can trust us to understand your vague, rather confused ideas about what’s right because basically we are in tune with your values. So you just mind your own business and we’ll sort out – in an ad hoc sort of way – what is in the country’s interests.

In the event, that wasn’t how it sounded. In Mrs May’s speech – of which most voters would have heard at least a bit – and the manifesto itself – of which they will probably have got at least a digested form – there was a very deliberate dose of flattery. To my ears, it sounded pretty much like this: the people can be relied on to be more morally sound and socially responsible than politicians give them credit for. It is their basic decency and sense of the “greater good” that should be the basis for government policy rather than arcane dogmatic theory.

Those instincts and values do not necessarily fit neatly within any prescribed template of political dogma. There are longings for personal and economic freedom mixed up with a belief that government should not allow people to be exploited. Distrust of state interference co-exists with a belief that government should intervene when people suffer real hardship.

But what underlies all these apparent contradictions, Mrs May suggested, is a readiness to accept that while government can’t have the answer to everything, it can sometimes be a force for good. In other words, what is needed is a benign state, not an overweening one. And that, I am willing to bet, is what most people (and almost all Tory voters) believe. They don’t want their lives dominated by the state – and they certainly don’t want disproportionate amounts of their earnings confiscated by it. But they do believe government should curb suffering and injustice.

This is where the word “fair” (or “fairness”) comes in. The Left has claimed “fairness” as its very own for a generation. It came to have a specialised definition that was virtually indistinguishable from “equality”: a fair society was one in which there were no significant disparities of success, wealth or security. But in real conversation, what people mean by the word “fair” is not that everybody should unconditionally end up with pretty much the same life circumstances as everybody else. Their definition of a “fair” society is one where you get out of life pretty much what you put in. If you work hard then you should, as Mrs May keeps saying, rise as far as your talent can take you, and naturally you should be allowed to collect (and keep) the rewards for that effort.

Again, that is what most people believe. But then it gets tricky. What if your failure to “work hard” or manifest talent is not your fault? Perhaps social deprivation, a damaged family life or a broken community have undermined your ability to thrive; what then? Is that where the state needs to act as a “force for good”? And what about the lifetime rewards of hard work?

Mrs May’s most newsworthy policy on social care is a good example of this difficulty. It is perfectly plausible to argue that nobody should be allowed to sit on a valuable property – and to pass it on in entirety to their children – when poorer taxpayers have been funding their home care. But on the other hand, those who do not own a home, perhaps because they have never worked, can receive unlimited free care, paid for by all those in gainful employment. It’s a hard call.

I am inclined to think that Mrs May’s gamble will pay off. The decent, common sense consensus is likely to be that exempting the home from being regarded as an “asset” after death makes no sense, and that, on balance, it is not fair for the propertyrich to expect their care to go unpaid for even after death. The right to inherit property can’t be so sacrosanct that it vanquishes every other moral consideration. So even assuming that we’re using the word “fair” in the real way, there is room for genuine disagreement. Decent instincts don’t get you all that far here, and politicians who rely on them can only guess at what popular opinion will decide.

But Mrs May obviously feels that she is in sufficient sympathy with that core of national decency to make the right guesses. She talks of a new contract between the generations and trusts the assumption that well-off pensioners will not resent losing some of their benefits. This is almost certainly right. It relies on the belief that older people are not selfish: that they worry as much about the futures of their children and grandchildren as they do about their financial assets.

The means-testing of the winter fuel payment is being depicted by the Left as a return to Tory heartlessness. Giving money to wealthy people should be clearly absurd (although Ruth Davidson’s declaration that she won’t pursue the policy in Scotland muddles the moral case). The vicar’s daughter can see this, where the dogmatic socialists cannot.

Much of the credibility of this depends on the personality of the Prime Minister herself. It is her image as the embodiment of those shared values and sound instincts on which the whole presentation rests. She has found a political message that suits her character and the mood of the country, too. But appeals to common sense do not resolve all the problems of modern government. The questions are soon going to get very complicated, and the answers will have to be systematic, complex and consistent. Political theory isn’t finished yet.