CONFIDENCE IN THE PEOPLE IS OPTIMISTISM:

The clear vision of an optimistic Prime Minister: Even the most traditional Tory should be happy with the direction David Cameron has charted. (Telegraph View, 03 Oct 2010, Daily Telegraph)

Above all, however, the theme that comes through in Mr Cameron’s interview – and which will doubtless inform his speech at the party conference – is one of “optimism”. Partly, this is a political manoeuvre, to rebut the charge levied by Ed Miliband, the new Labour leader, that Mr Cameron offers the country nothing but gloom. Yet there is a wider point here. Labour see themselves as optimists because of their age-old commitment to using state power to build the New Jerusalem. Conservatives are optimistic in a different way. They believe that people can do the right thing without the state forcing them to do so. Indeed, they believe that people are more likely to behave decently without the state taking away the responsibility for their decisions. That is the ideal that underpins Mr Cameron’s commitment to the “Big Society”: if the state’s role is diminished, ordinary folk are capable of stepping in to organise and deliver services in a better and more effective way.

This, for example, is why Mr Cameron believes that it is possible to get rid of a great deal of health and safety regulation without damaging health and safety; that it should be made much easier for people to set up their own schools and teach children; and that local people should have the power to elect those who run their police forces. It is also why, as he says, his most frequent question to Vince Cable and George Osborne, the Business Secretary and Chancellor, is: “Have you made it easier to set up a business, employ someone, expand, export?” He believes that it is individual enterprise and initiative that will get us out of the present economic crisis, and in this, he is certainly correct. That belief is also at the core of liberalism — which may help to explain why, so far, the Coalition has worked so well.