BRITAIN:David Cameron has combined a coherent package for "Conservative change in a new world of freedom" with a direct challenge to Gordon Brown to "let the people decide" in an immediate general election.
"Call that election. We will fight. Britain will win," Mr Cameron declared yesterday at the conclusion of a masterful end-of-conference speech delivered without notes or autocue in which he cast his party as the "modern" alternative to "cynical" Labour.
The British prime minister is expected to review post-conference season polling data before finally deciding this weekend whether to call an election for November 1st or 8th. However, there was further evidence of a clearing of the decks in Whitehall, amid reports that the government's comprehensive spending review will be brought forward to Monday and that Mr Brown has cleared his diary for Tuesday.
Anticipating Mr Brown's now widely expected trip to Buckingham Palace to formally ask Queen Elizabeth to dissolve parliament, Mr Cameron sought to present himself as the "authentic" candidate in what is set to be a highly presidential-style contest.
In a barbed reference to Mr Brown's own conference speech, and suggestions that it relied heavily on the texts of a number of US politicians, Mr Cameron said: "It wasn't just that we'd heard it all before, I mean literally heard it all before. I think actually quite a lot of people in America had heard it all before as well.
"There were the GP surgery family-friendly opening hours, we've had that three times before; eco-towns, four times before; competitive sport in our schools, six times before - and no indication about how any of these things are going to be done. But it wasn't just that. It was the cynicism of it. He told us things that he knows he can't do."
British jobs for British workers, exclaimed Mr Cameron: "It's illegal under British law."
Likewise of Mr Brown's plan to deport people for gun and knife crime: "You can't do that because of Labour's Human Rights Act." "I have to say to the prime minister: if you treat people like fools, you don't deserve to run the country, let alone win an election," the Tory leader declared.
Eschewing the oratory normally associated with conference speeches, Mr Cameron adopted a conversational tone plainly directed at the public beyond the Tory faithful gathered in Blackpool's Winter Gardens.
His presentation was determinedly moderate as he weaved his vision through a policy programme insistently "green" as well as blue, promising real improvement and reform in the National Health Service and state education, local policing accountability and "beat-based zero tolerance" of crime, earlier intervention to rescue failing children, enforceable contracts between parents and schools, a more responsible society, tough new benefits rules and an end to "the couple penalty", personal empowerment, support for marriage, a police-based border patrol force, an EU treaty referendum, annual limits on immigration and a bigger army.
In contrast to Mr Brown last week, Mr Cameron spoke at length about the obligation of government to improve the conditions of service personnel and their families, vowing he would give "top priority" to Afghanistan if elected prime minister, while accusing Labour of breaking the "covenant" with Britain's armed forces.
Mr Cameron told his party he wanted it to talk about immigration "in a reasonable, humane and sensible way". By contrast, he said: "What I always find with the government is that you get the exact opposite. You get a whole lot of language - often quite inflammatory - but they do not take steps that Britain needs. So let us be the ones that handle this issue in the way that it needs to be for the good of the country and our public services."
Mr Cameron also turned a familiar criticism of Tory policies, accusing Mr Brown of adopting a "dog-whistle" approach to contentious issues. "Boy, has this guy got a plan," said Mr Cameron: "It's to appeal to those 4 per cent of people in the marginal seats with a dog-whistle about immigration here, about crime there, wrap yourself up in the flag and maybe you convince people you are on their side.
"But I say, 'God, we have got to do better than that'.What about the 40 per cent of our fellow citizens who have just given up on politics? We have got to inspire them. People want the politics of belief and that means politics they can believe in."
Mr Brown's key cabinet ally Ed Balls suggested that this was "a good leader of the opposition's speech" but still "a long way away" from that of a prime minister.