David Cameron, the leader of Britain's Conservative opposition, is highly likely to be Britain's next prime minister when the general election comes in 12 to 18 months time. He is in effect the prime minister-in-waiting. His views about the international scene are therefore very important not just to the British but to Europe and, arguably, the whole world.
Very recently he made a speech of great significance while visiting Pakistan. It indicated that the Conservatives are beginning to shape out a distinctive and up-to-date view on international affairs and British foreign policy.
Far from being marginal to British politics, his words contain the seeds of the truly "big idea" that is needed to indicate that a Conservative government has something entirely new and different to offer. What Cameron had to say about the dangers of trying to export "democracy" as a package, or of imagining it can be "dropped from 10,000 feet" on some erring populace, shows that it just does not buy the simplified notions peddled by the outgoing Bush administration, to which former Prime Minister Tony Blair was so partial — namely that "democracy" is somehow "the property of the West and a system to be imposed on other cultures."