If Tony Blair’s foreign policy has been such a disaster, as his detractors assert, its failings should surely provide David Cameron with an open goal. Yet as the Conservative leader underlined yesterday, and as every football manager knows, scoring away is never easy. Mr Cameron’s speech to the British American Project attempted to mix noble ideals about overseas intervention with a few home truths about how to get it right. Despite a healthy smattering of soundbites, it represents a serious attempt to craft a Conservative foreign policy template that is distinct from the Government’s without betraying Tory principles. In doing so, Mr Cameron makes a series of legitimate points. Whether, in office, his plan would survive its first brush with a policy dilemma is a test for the future.

Before Mr Cameron can put distance between himself and Mr Blair, he rightly realises that he must convince voters he appreciates the risks that the West faces from extremism. He insists that he understands the “new realities” of life after 9/11, and that fighting terrorism is the “most consuming concern” of government. He also presents himself as avowedly Atlanticist, saying that anti-Americanism represents “intellectual and moral surrender”. So far, so good.

But to drive home his point, Mr Cameron resorts to a dash of chattering-class populism. “I am a liberal conservative rather than a neoconservative,” he says. This “libcon” positioning is calculated to appeal to those who believe that Washington’s “neocons” are responsible for every ill of the past five years.

The term neoconservatism is used promiscuously and, more often than not, ignorantly, as a catchphrase for chaos. Its tenets — emphasising the importance of democracy and the projection of US power to that end — did indeed provide much of the intellectual underpinning of Washington and London’s response to the post-9/11 world. There are arguments against such a world view. But there is a difference between a policy and execution of that policy, and to heap every shortcoming at the door of neocons is to misunderstand and exaggerate their influence. It is not the fault of neocons, for instance, that Donald Rumsfeld — not a neocon — used the Iraq war to “prove” his own flawed theories about the future size and shape of the US Armed Forces, or that Britain and Nato have insufficient troops in Helmand province.

Mr Cameron is clearly grappling with foreign policy, but there is a sig- nificant chunk of his own party that is more Little Englander than liberal conservative. He defines his approach as being beyond neoconservatism, largely because it would be marked by more patience and humility. These are “not warlike words”, as he says, and they are also admirable qualities, particularly in political leaders, but they do not amount to a strategy. Similarly, Mr Cameron promises a “new emphasis on multilateralism”, within existing institutions if possible, but if not, outside them.

After five years marked by contentious military conflict, Mr Cameron is projecting himself as a man of compassion, a “neocom” rather than a neocon. He added substantially to the national debate yesterday. But if he continues to deliver lines such as “Bombs and missiles are bad ambassadors”, he runs the risk of appearing more “glibcon” than “libcon”.