"But we will say something else. That for far too long in this country, people who can work, people who are able to work, and people who choose not to work: you cannot go on claiming welfare like you are now"
About this Quote
Cameron’s line is built like a courtroom charge: three times he names the defendant - “people who can work, people who are able to work, and people who choose not to work” - then delivers the sentence. The repetition isn’t about clarity; it’s about moral sorting. “Can” and “are able” are effectively the same category, but doubling them widens the net and makes the final group (“choose not to work”) feel larger and more plausible. By the time he lands on “you cannot go on,” the audience has been coached to hear welfare not as a safety net but as an indulgence being abused.
The phrase “for far too long in this country” does heavy political lifting. It appeals to a national patience allegedly exhausted, implying a quiet majority that’s been taken advantage of. It also smuggles in nostalgia: a Britain of discipline and contribution that has supposedly been eroded. “Claiming welfare like you are now” adds the crucial note of accusation-by-vagueness. He doesn’t cite numbers or cases; he paints a present-tense scene of ongoing extraction, letting listeners supply their own tabloid mental images.
Context matters: this is austerity-era rhetoric aimed at making cuts and conditionality feel like common sense rather than ideology. The subtext isn’t just “work is good.” It’s that unemployment is primarily a character issue, and that the state’s job is to correct behavior, not merely cushion hardship. Cameron’s intent is to reframe welfare reform as fairness - not to the poor, but to the worker-taxpayer imagined as the moral center of the nation.
The phrase “for far too long in this country” does heavy political lifting. It appeals to a national patience allegedly exhausted, implying a quiet majority that’s been taken advantage of. It also smuggles in nostalgia: a Britain of discipline and contribution that has supposedly been eroded. “Claiming welfare like you are now” adds the crucial note of accusation-by-vagueness. He doesn’t cite numbers or cases; he paints a present-tense scene of ongoing extraction, letting listeners supply their own tabloid mental images.
Context matters: this is austerity-era rhetoric aimed at making cuts and conditionality feel like common sense rather than ideology. The subtext isn’t just “work is good.” It’s that unemployment is primarily a character issue, and that the state’s job is to correct behavior, not merely cushion hardship. Cameron’s intent is to reframe welfare reform as fairness - not to the poor, but to the worker-taxpayer imagined as the moral center of the nation.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work Ethic |
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