In January 1996, 16 months before becoming prime minister, Tony Blair travelled to Singapore and proposed a new kind of politics, based on a new kind of economics.

His “stakeholder society” would be very different from the harsh individualism of the Thatcher era. “We need a country in which we acknowledge an obligation collectively to ensure each citizen gets a stake in it,” he said.

Building on his “big idea” a few days later he cited with approval the example of John Lewis, the retailing partnership in which all the employees are “stakeholders”.

A few days ago David Cameron, the Tory leader, gave us his “new political agenda” that, he said, captured the “zeitgeist”. “The spirit of the age demands social values as well as economic value,” he claimed.

And yes, he too cited with approval “the venerable company” John Lewis, which had created a “common bond” for its employees.

Blair’s stakeholder society did not last very long. When the trade unions seized upon it as evidence that a Labour government would take on the big bosses, and business reacted with a mixture of scepticism and alarm, it was quietly shelved.

Will Cameron’s new political agenda go the same way, his intention to focus on “general wellbeing” rather than gross domestic product doomed to the same fate as his promise to end “Punch and Judy” politics? Or is this one built to last, and does it have any intellectual underpinnings?

Tory strategists always knew there would be a problem after Cameron’s honeymoon period as party leader. Once he had set up policy reviews in areas ranging from the environment through to social justice and quality of life, what was he to say in the 18 months his review teams were deliberating?

Cameron has one big advantage, against an increasingly jaded prime minister — he looks fresh. Nick Boles, director of Policy Exchange, the think tank, says that also applies to Cameron v Brown. Against the chancellor’s “incongruous” attempts to look in tune with the public mood, Cameron achieves it naturally.

“It’s one of those unfair things about life,” says Boles. “I had thought David Cameron might struggle with this, and appear too patrician, but he’s got it.” That extended to the Tory leader’s choice of music last week on Desert Island Discs. Previously, politicians have allowed their selections to be steered by party strategists, making sure they press enough political buttons.

Cameron’s, which included the Benny Hill hit “Ernie”, appeared entirely his own. “He feels very strongly that people’s bullshit detectors are very well tuned,” says Boles. “They’d know if they’d been chosen by committee.”

But Cameron also needed to be seen to be another kind of freshness, to be seen to be promoting new ideas. Part of this would involve Tory shibboleths, such as a firm commitment to tax cuts.

Thus George Osborne, Cameron’s right-hand man and shadow chancellor, went further than before last week in saying that an explicit Tory promise of tax cuts at the next election was “highly unlikely”, though the party would still aim to reduce the tax burden over time.