In politics, basic changes occur less often than the shriek of the headlines would suggest. But there are moments when the commentators need to sack all their concepts and assumptions. At least as regards the Tory party, this is one such moment.

David Cameron, its leader, has been widely and consistently misinterpreted. He has been portrayed as an appeasing Old Etonian, racked by class guilt, saturated by defeatism, eager to repudiate Thatcherism and to present himself as the heir of Tony Blair while offering voters a pale blue version of a bland, centrist consensus. I have known Cameron for 15 years, and I can assure readers that this portrayal is a mere invention.

The real Cameron does have charm. He is committed to improving the lot of the worse-off in society. But he is also one of Thatcher’s children. He is a convinced free marketeer. He is profoundly sceptical about the state’s ability to spend money effectively as opposed to wasting money extensively.

Above all, he is a Tory hungry to win. That means a willingness to accommodate himself to public opinion as it is, not as some Tories would wish it to be. There was a defining moment in the summer of 2004. The Tory party offered focus groups tax cuts. They replied, “No, thank you.” They were asked again, and once again they said, “No, thank you.” It became clear to the Tory hierarchy that if their manifesto proposed tax cuts, the voters would not believe that they would ever see the money. But they would believe that a Tory government intended to cut spending on public services.

Cameron started thinking hard and furiously. He came to a number of conclusions. The first was that there was no future in offering the public what it does not want. The Tories had to regain the public’s confidence, especially on education and health.

He is determined to lead the Tory party in order to change the Tory party, and is convinced that the task was so urgent as to justify a number of political risks. He also believes that it was necessary to strike fast and hard. He thought that if he had waited even three months, it would have been impossible to make sufficient impact. He had to hit his targets when there was still media interest in the new kid on the block.

Cameron has been leader of the Tories for one month. In that brief interlude he has provoked a leadership crisis within the Liberal Democrat party while accelerating a cabinet reshuffle. Above all, and in the most dramatic fashion, he has altered the public perception of the Conservatives. For what they are worth, the early polls suggest that he is breaking out from the Tories’ low 30% ghetto. But there is a problem.

In order to reconcile the electorate to his party, he has to persuade the voters that he believes in the National Health Service and state education. This has upset some of his own supporters on what one could call the “reasonable right”, who are by no means reconciled to the current arrangements for health and education.

The reasonable right would argue that the system Cameron seems to be embracing was established by the post-war Labour government in an era

of scarcity, when there was still a widespread belief in state socialism. Over the intervening decades, the scarcity has been alleviated and it has become increasingly clear that state socialism does not work.

All sorts of proposals for reform are on the agenda, including education vouchers and a social insurance model for the health service. So why should Cameron rush to embrace failure? There is force in these criticisms. Over the past few years, spending on both education and health has increased substantially, but there is little evidence that this has led to an improved performance.

The reasonable right has a point, but it is a superficial one. If Cameron had begun his leadership by insisting on the need for radical reform in both health and education, Labour spokesmen would have insisted that the Tories were not interested in improving public services. They were merely seeking cost savings, in order to pay for tax cuts.

Cameron also has a moral imperative which does divide him from some of the reasonable right. He believes the state must have a reserve-bank role in guaranteeing standards in health and education. He is not interested in providing life rafts for a few refugees from the wreckage of state health and state education. He is convinced of the need to improve services for everyone.

That said, he is equally convinced of the need to use market mechanisms and consumer choice in order to achieve this. He has no intention of retaining state monopoly provision, even in the services the state currently administers. By persuading the voters that it has generous instincts, a Cameron Tory party would hope to earn the permission to be radical. In government, it would display the same intellectual momentum as Mrs Thatcher did when she was in power.

The truly reasonable right should acknowledge the complexity of the problems and the subtlety of the new tactics. In examining Cameron’s proposals, it should stop giving him the doubt of every benefit — and start being reasonable.