David Cameron: globalisation is key to Britain's future

By Alex Singleton | 24 October 2005

David Cameron MP has been talking a lot recently about globalisation. Cameron has a liberal outlook and says that the best way for Britain to engage in the globalised world is to get out there and compete. He has been arguing in favour of market-based solutions to African poverty, saying that we need to help "provide the trade upon which - along with rule of law and property rights - sub-Saharan Africa's rescue from poverty depends".

Cameron believes Britain must rise to the challenges of globalisation, not by resorting to protectionism, but by ensuring Britain has the flexibility to compete:

We must have faith in the social and economic benefits of the free market. A real programme for prosperity will progressively remove the barriers to wealth creation in Britain today. We need to open ourselves to risk and treat adults like adults. The stock of regulations must be reduced: we should trust people to make their own mistakes and learn from them. And the flow of new regulation from the EU must also be reduced: our aim should be to take back control of employment and social regulation...

We must reduce and simplify taxes so we can take on with confidence the long term challenge of competing with China and India for jobs. This means not only proper control of public spending, but also a thoughtful and long-term strategy for tax reduction.

Mr Cameron has also put forward sensible thinking on climate change, saying we need market-based solutions that "generate the advance in technology needed to control climate change".