VOICE10: Voters must back social enterprise, says Blond

Politicians will only adopt social enterprise as the vision for all business models if there is a groundswell of support from ordinary voters, warned one of David Cameron's key advisors today.

Phillip Blond, the director of social conservative think tank ResPublica and otherwise known as the 'Red Tory', was speaking at Voice10, the national social enterprise conference in Cardiff.

Blond said that he believed that social and environmental principles should be embedded in all business.

But he was challenged by a question from Nigel Lowthrop, founder of environmental social enterprise Hill Holt Wood.

Lowthrop said that at last year's Voice conference Conservative leader David Cameron had 'backed away' from saying he believed that social enterprise was the vision of future business.

Lowthrop asked Blond whether he believed Cameron, if he became prime minister, would support social enterprise as the way for all business to be conducted or whether Cameron would back away from this due to the pressure of big corporates.

Blond answered that Cameron's response would depend on what the voters wanted.

'I think real politics is about voters creating the pre-conditions for politicians to do something different,' he said.

'What we need is bottom up politics, but, by the same token, a really clever politician has to help create the constituency that will support him in the change he wants to see.

'Until we create that constituency for radical politics we will just have the same old, same old.'

Blond said: 'The real future is all business becomes social enterprise.'