Published: 7:00AM BST 04 Oct 2009  'It is Labour's big government approach that has completely failed, over the last decade, to reform welfare, leaving us with a system where for too many people it pays not to work.' Photo: GEOFF PUGH  Opposition parties rarely win elections by default and, in any event, the electoral mountain we need to climb and the challenges we need to overcome in government require a strong and positive mandate. So victory should be earned through setting out, clearly and positively, the change we want to bring. That's why this week in Manchester, the Conservative Party will be offering the straight talk, leadership and radical new direction this country is crying out for.  Of course that will start with confronting Labour's debt crisis. Even if the Government halves the deficit, as they claim they will do, we will still be borrowing as much as when Denis Healey went to the IMF in 1976. This threatens to put our whole recovery and economic stability at risk. That's why we have been frank with the British people about the need for spending cuts – and it's why this week we will be setting out in more detail our plans to deal with Labour's debt crisis.  But the crisis we face today is not just about debt – it's about jobs. There are already two and a half million people unemployed. That could rise as high as three million. On top of that, we have 2.6 million people on incapacity benefit. And perhaps most worrying of all, one in five young people is now without work. There can be no doubt: Labour are the party of unemployment.  The urgency of this crisis and the scale of the suffering is why we're putting this problem – and our solution – front and centre at our conference. We won't get Britain back to work through Labour's big government solutions. It is big government that has stifled innovation and crushed enterprise – the very engines of growth and job creation.  And it is Labour's big government approach that has completely failed, over the last decade, to reform welfare, leaving us with a system where for too many people it pays not to work.  Our solution is to put economic power into people's hands. This will not happen through any one policy or programme alone. It requires a sweeping change in economic policy right across the board – from taxation, to training, to infrastructure – to unleash investment and entrepreneurial activity that helps create more jobs.  That's why we will replace the New Deal with a new plan to Get Britain Working. Through tax reform and deregulation we can help people start new businesses, make it easier for them to take people on, and make it more attractive for companies to locate and employ people in Britain. But getting Britain working is not just about increasing demand for employees through business growth. It's about making sure the supply – or the workforce – is trained and ready to take those jobs. That's why this week we'll be setting out our policies on universities, schools, apprenticeships, skills- all the things a modern economy requires for success.  But to get to grips with this problem, perhaps the most important thing we can do is reform the welfare system. Labour's big-state solutions mean that today there are 22 different work schemes and 15 pilots operating in this country. David Freud knew this obsession with top-down control was never going to work. And, after his plans for change got frustrated by Gordon Brown, he found a welcome home with the Conservatives. He's been helping Theresa May design our plans to dismantle that big government labyrinth and simplify the system so we can give people more personalised support. That will put the power to find work back in their hands.  This people power revolution extends across our entire reform agenda. We believe that the answers to our problems lie in the people of this country. The inspiration to breathe new life into our schools, the ingenuity to get more for less in our public services, the imagination to rebuild our communities – these will come from families, professionals and charities.  Why do we believe this? It's not just that as Conservatives we are optimistic about human nature. It's not even that in the past decade Labour have tested to destruction the idea that big government can solve all our problems. It's that today, dramatic changes in technology mean that for the first time we can truly put power in people's hands.  It's these insights that inform our plan to fix our broken politics. We will bring a radical redistribution of power, from the powerful to the powerless. That means decentralisation, so we will have mayors in our big cities. It means accountability, so we will cut the number of quangos and make sure those who make decisions that affect people's lives have to answer for them. And it means transparency, so people can see how their money is being spent. That's why we will publish every item of government spending over £25,000 online.  These insights also inform our plans to fix our broken society. Take school reform. In today's top-down system, all too often parents have to take whatever school they're given. We're going to put meaningful choice in their hands by smashing open the state education monopoly so that any qualified organisation can set up a new state school. This will help raise standards across the board.  So this week in Manchester you will see that far from playing it safe, the Conservative Party has a radical agenda for returning power and responsibility to people. It will mean massive change in the way we run this country, how we live our lives, and what we expect from government and each other. In the words of Martin Luther King, "when you're right, you can't be too radical".
If there's one piece of advice I keep hearing, it's this: "Play it safe    and you'll win the election." It's well-intentioned but completely    wrong, writes David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative Party.