People power | 20 February 2010

This was the week when the Conservatives finally started to get it right. After several false starts, disastrous poster campaigns and tragicomic errors, an agenda is now emerging. Handled properly, it could win David Cameron the majority he so badly needs — and rapidly undo the damage of the Labour years.

Mr Cameron said on Monday that the next election would not be about transferring power from Labour to the Tories, but from government to the people. In an era when voters do not trust politicians of any hue, it is a powerful message. It could sound like a Barack Obama cliché were it not backed by something concrete. Mr Cameron proposes to allow as many public sector workers as possible to put together what is, in effect, a management buyout: taking over and running the services they offer. They would work as independent units, under contract from the state, and reinvesting any profit which they make through efficiencies.