A few decades ago Maurice Roche concluded an influential book on citizenship with the observation that ‘the politics of citizenship has for generations formulated its goals, fought its battles and found its voice in the discourse of rights. In the late twentieth century’, he argued, ‘it also needs to be able to speak, to act, and to understand itself in the language of citizens’ personal responsibility and social obligation, in the discourse of duties as well as of rights’ (1992, p 246). Whatever the validity of that statement at the time, the politics of citizenship in the UK has subsequently changed in the direction called for by Roche so that ‘the processes of “responsibilization”’ have increasingly shaped the ideal citizen of today (Clarke, 2005, p 451). Nevertheless, writing in autumn 2010, as we head into the uncharted waters of coalition government, Prime Minister David Cameron speaks as if Roche's criticism were still apposite. He thereby ignores the persistent drumbeat of responsibility, which provided the soundtrack for both the Blair-Brown and the Thatcher-Major years.

To recap: back in 1988, John Moore, then Social Security Secretary, called for ‘correcting the balance of the citizenship equation. In a free society the equation that has “rights” on one side must have “responsibilities” on the other’ (1988). In the early days of New Labour former Prime Minister Tony Blair declared that ‘duty is an essential Labour concept. It is at the heart of creating a strong community or society’. And he distanced himself from ‘early Left thinking’ in which the ‘language of responsibility [was] spoken far less fluently than that of rights’ (1995). Yet, 12 years on, when he became leader, Gordon Brown told Labour's Annual Conference that ‘we have not done enough in the last ten years to emphasise that in return for the rights we all have, there are responsibilities we all owe’ (2007).

Three years later, on the steps of No 10 Downing Street, Cameron declared ‘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’ (2010c). Responsibility is one of the trinity of values guiding the Coalition.