Cameron unveils 'big society' plans

London: Charities will be given public money to run welfare schemes under Tory plans to end the "moral failure" of Labour's welfare state.

On Tuesday night David Cameron unveiled ideas to move from "big government" to a "big society", where communities take over.

In an audacious raid on Labour turf, the Tory leader pledged to match the Government's pledge to end child poverty. But he said that in power he would combat "broken Britain" by giving power to local groups instead of the nanny state.

Individualism

He said: "Human kindness, generosity and imagination are steadily being squeezed out by the work of the state" which had promoted "selfishness and individualism."

He added: "There is less expectation to take responsibility: to work, to stand by the mother of your child, to achieve, to engage with your local community, to keep your neighbourhood clean, to respect other people and their property, to use your own discretion and judgment. Why? Because today the state is ever-present: either doing it for you, or telling you how to do it, or making sure you're doing it their way." Cameron said under a Tory government, the state would hire "social entrepreneurs" to help the poor and encourage ordinary people to do more voluntary work.

"Our alternative to big government is not no government," Cameron said in the annual Hugo Young lecture.

"Our alternative to big government is the big society. We need to use the state to remake society."

He unveiled a policy to award contracts to charities that tame teenage tearaways and help the jobless back into work.

Meanwhile Sir John Major is considering a return to frontline politics if the Tories win power. The former prime minister yesterday indicated he would consider accepting a government job if Cameron wins next year's election.

He said he had been taking a "sabbatical" from politics and would not rule out taking a seat in the House of Lords as a Tory peer.

Cameron, who worked as a political adviser to the last Conservative government under Sir John, is an admirer. It is thought Sir John could be offered a coordination role without a departmental brief. He turned his back on politics after his seven-year spell as prime minister ended with a landslide defeat at the hands of Tony Blair in 1997.

He refused the peerage traditionally offered to former prime ministers and has since made few forays into politics.

Instead he has focused on cricket and his lucrative international business career.