Name: 【TED】David Cameron: The next age of government (David Cameron: The next age of government)
Uploaded: 2016-01-25T05:48:42.000Z
Duration: 14 min 33 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Past simple

Someone once said that politics is, of course, "showbiz for ugly people."

Sentences with adverbs of degree

So, on that basis, I feel like I've really arrived.

To-infinitive

The other thing to think of is what an honor it is, as a politician,

to give a TED talk, particularly here in the U.K.,

where the reputation of politics, with the expenses scandal, has sunk so low.

There was even a story recently that scientists had thought about

actually replacing rats in their experiments with politicians.

and they said, "Well, there's no shortage of politicians,

and, after all, there are some things that rats just won't do."

Now, I know you all love data, so I'm starting with a data-rich slide.

This, I think, is the most important fact to bear in mind

in British politics or American politics,

and, as you can see, it's 32 trillion and counting.

that there's one question in politics at the moment above all other,

and it's this one: How do we make things better without spending more money?

Because there isn't going to be a lot of money to improve public services,

or to improve government, or to improve so many of the things

So what follows from that is that if you think it's all about money --

you can only measure success in public services

in health care and education and policing by spending more money,

you can only measure progress by spending money --

you're going to have a pretty miserable time.

But if you think a whole lot of other things matter that lead up to well being --

things like your family relationships, friendship, community, values --

then, actually, this is an incredibly exciting time to be in politics.

And the really simple argument I want to make tonight,

the really straightforward argument is this:

That if we combine the right political philosophy, the right political thinking,

with the incredible information revolution that has taken place,

and that all of you know so much more about than I do,

I think there's an incredible opportunity to actually remake politics,

remake government, remake public services,

and achieve what's up on that slide, which is a big increase in our well-being.

That's the argument I want to make tonight.

So, starting with the political philosophy.

Now I'm not saying for a minute that British Conservatives have all the answers.

But there are two things at heart that I think drive a conservative philosophy

that are really relevant to this whole debate.

The first is this: We believe that if you give people

then actually, you can create a stronger and better society.

And if you marry this fact with the incredible abundance

of information that we have in our world today,

I think you can completely, as I've said,

remake politics, remake government, remake your public services.

The second thing we believe is we believe in going with the grain of human nature.

Politics and politicians will only succeed

if they actually try and treat with people as they are,

rather than as they would like them to be.

Now, if you combine this very simple, very conservative thought --

with all the advances in behavioral economics,

some of which we were just hearing about,

again, I think we can achieve a real increase in well-being,

without necessarily having to spend a whole lot more money.

Now, why do I think now is the moment to make this argument?

Well, I'm afraid you're going to suffer a short, condensed history lesson

about what I would say are the three passages of history:

the pre-bureaucratic age, the bureaucratic age

and what we now live in, which I think is a post-bureaucratic age.

is that we have gone from a world of local control,

then we went to a world of central control,

and now we're in a world of people control.

Local power, central power, now, people power.

Now, here is King Cnut, king a thousand years ago.

Thought he could turn back the waves; couldn't turn back the waves.

because if you were king a thousand years ago,

while it still took hours and hours and weeks and weeks to traverse your own country,

You weren't in charge of policing, justice, education, health, welfare.

You could just about go to war and that was about it.

an age in which everything had to be local.

You had to have local control because there was no nationally-available information

the lovely picture of the British Industrial Revolution.

Suddenly, all sorts of transport, travel information were possible,

and this gave birth to, what I like to call, the bureaucratic age.

And hopefully this slide is going to morph beautifully. There we are.

Suddenly, you have the big, strong, central state.

It was able -- but only it was able -- to organize

health care, education, policing, justice.

And it was a world of, as I say, not local power, but now central power.

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【TED】David Cameron: The next age of government (David Cameron: The next age of government)

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