Leading article: A new Conservative Party lays claim to government

In each of his previous conference speeches, David Cameron managed to exceed ever-higher expectations, and he did so again yesterday. The leader of the Conservative Party had a set of clearly identifiable tasks before him. Some were long-standing: to put flesh on the bones of his general policy directions and supplement his undoubted style with substance. But there were new tasks as well.

There was the direct, personal, challenge thrown down by Gordon Brown in his speech to Labour's conference last week, in which he capitalised on his own reputation for seriousness and quipped about this being "no time for a novice". There was also the broader context of the international financial crisis, which had eclipsed the conference in the headlines, while changing almost from hour to hour. Mr Cameron had to convince on each of these different fronts.

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That he largely succeeded was no mean feat. That he did so with energy, elegance and his particular brand of charm was a bonus. A slower speaking pace, a lectern, and the Shadow Cabinet ranged behind him all created a new sense of gravitas, while conveying cohesion and – a key word yesterday – responsibility. You can't prove you're ready to be prime minister, Mr Cameron said at one point. But the whole tone and choreography was designed to do exactly that: to show a government, and a leader, in waiting.

There were passages tailored to the party grass roots – the support for the armed forces, the strong streak of patriotism, the impassioned defence of the Union. But this was a speech addressed not just to the party but to the wider audience of British voters.

As nimbly as he had adjusted Tuesday's agenda to offer succour to the Government at a time of crisis, the Conservative leader attacked specific Labour "mistakes", as he saw them, without descending to a personal attack on Gordon Brown. David Miliband, on the other hand, caught the rough edge of Mr Cameron's tongue – for insisting that the state was the individual's only protection from the storm. What about family, community, neighbourhood, the Conservative leader asked, setting up the framework perhaps for a political argument still to come.

Labour's mistakes Mr Cameron defined as a failure to accompany the Bank of England's independence with sufficient regulation of the financial system, and a "spendaholic" approach to government in the good times. These were well-judged targets, because they were almost the only ones that could legitimately be made by a free-market party that was surely as tolerant of City excesses as the Labour Party of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Taken with the emphasis on responsibility – personal, civic and corporate – and his trademark arguments about the "broken society", however, Mr Cameron fleshed out an approach that combined old-fashioned one-nation Toryism with a modern air of tolerance. Taking a leaf perhaps out of Barack Obama's book, he ended with a commendably upbeat emphasis on change.

For a cycling home-owner with a windmill on his roof, the short shrift he gave to the environment was disappointing, as was his crowd-pleasing promise to reopen the Europe issue with a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. All in all, though, this was a speech in which Mr Cameron took on the Government effectively, while enhancing his own authority in his party and speaking to the country at large. It was no novice who acknowledged the cheers in Birmingham yesterday.