To avoid contributing to the guff pandemic which is sweeping Westminster, here is a very brief reflection on the speeches made by the outgoing and incoming Prime Ministers – there was a subtle but important contrast in their vision.

My main point is this: Gordon Brown yesterday articulated a better vision of what power can achieve than David Cameron managed on the steps of Number 10.

Yes, Cameron probably wanted to appear businessmanlike and, yes, maybe Brown should have shown more vision during the campaign. Nonetheless, the contrast between the individualist and collectivist approaches to goverment were evident in the speeches made yesterday by the incoming and outgoing Prime Ministers.

David Cameron, speech on steps of 10 Downing Street, 11 May 2010:

I came into politics because I love this country. I think its best days still lie ahead and I believe deeply in public service. And I think the service our country needs right now is to face up to our really big challenges, to confront our problems, to take difficult decisions, to lead people through those difficult decisions, so that together we can reach better times ahead.

….

I want to help try and build a more responsible society here in Britain. One where we don’t just ask what are my entitlements, but what are my responsibilities. One where we don’t ask what am I just owed, but more what can I give. And a guide for that society – that those that can should, and those who can’t we will always help.

Gordon Brown, speech to Labour Party HQ, 11 May 2010:

We fought for the future.

And we continue to fight unceasingly because progress is not a word we just speak but a reality we have been creating where the ambit of opportunity always expands and never contracts. And we fight for progress because we know the energy and talent of the British people are boundless whenever they are released from stereotype and allowed to soar.

We know that progressive change is possible, because our very record shows it is.

POSTSCRIPT: Maybe the above is a proof of the saying that one “campaigns in poetry, but governs in prose”.