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Iain Duncan Smith, the former leader of the Conservative party, has set up shop away from Westminster in Lambeth, one of the poorest boroughs in the country. His new think-tank, the Centre for Social Justice, is as much about doing, he says, as thinking. He argues that the Tories can win power again only if they can persuade people to vote not just for what is best for themselves but also what is best for their neighbours.

His words are welcome, particularly when Oliver Letwin, the shadow chancellor, persistently lets slip that his own political tendency is to cut public spending and cut again.


IDS may also impress if he sticks to his belief in giving money to voluntary groups "without strings", knowing that some will fail. As we all know, Labour's fixation with form filling, rigid goals and perpetual monitoring ensures that many self-help groups collapse from bureaucracy fatigue long before they can deliver.

A national survey of street-based projects working with young people who are not in education, training or employment has found that these schemes work well when given adequate long-term resources. But too many suffer from short-term funding and high staff turnover.

Extending street-based youth projects to the most deprived 50 per cent of areas in England and Wales would cost about £142m a year - about 4 per cent of the budget in those areas for secondary schools. Will it happen? Not a chance. Unless, of course, a high-profile champion such as IDS decides to adopt it as one of the early testing grounds for his commitment to "compassionate Conservativism".


The survey is particularly telling because it reveals the constraints on effective practice when target-driven, single-issue goals are the norm, preventing the kind of holistic support that can turn a life around. Time is particularly precious.

"It can take upwards of a year, realistically, because you're taking on someone who has a hopeless view of the future and really rudimentary skills," says one project worker.

An irony is emerging in British politics. Tony Blair is frightened to expand the good work his government has undertaken, particularly in tackling social exclusion, for fear of alienating Middle England. And IDS believes that one way to attract back that middle-class vote is to underline the need to help the marginalised. Their respective positions tell us more about New Labour's metamorphosis under Blair than it reveals about the Tory party's future prospects.