The PM must make room for bold opinions It is now easily forgotten that David Davis defeated David Cameron in the initial ballot to elect a new leader of the Conservative Party in 2005. Mr Davis might even have won in the final ballot, had his campaign been better managed and had he tried harder to court the centre of the party. But he lost. And although Mr Cameron immediately appointed him as shadow home secretary, within two years Mr Davis resigned his post to stand for re-election as an MP on a civil liberties ticket. This was, with hindsight, a poor decision, and he has been consigned to the political wilderness ever since. Nevertheless, the absence of Mr Davis and his robust views from the Cabinet are a significant loss to it. He cannot be described as a Tory toff: he comes from an underprivileged background, was bought up on a council estate, and went to the local grammar school. He has made his way up the greasy pole of politics - and, it must be added, down it again - entirely on his own merits. In his interview with this newspaper today, Mr Davis expresses his vision for Britain clearly. It is the antithesis of the big-state, high-tax agenda being put forward by Nick Clegg's increasingly eccentric Liberal Democrats. Where Mr Clegg is set on new wealth taxes - his latest plan amounts to an annual charge of 1 per cent of the value of your home - Mr Davis unapologetically wants tax cuts and deregulation. He sees the adoption of pro-growth economic policies as essential to restoring Britain's prosperity. He also wants investment in infrastructure, starting with an expansion of London's capacity to handle air traffic. He is equally emphatic that any such investment, and any reductions in taxation, should only be funded by cutting state spending, not by loading the state's finances with yet more debt. He thinks that there should be a "fundamental look at everything that government is doing" and that the cuts have not been deep enough. He is surely right about this: it is a depressing comment on the culture of local government that, as we report today, supposedly cash-strapped councils have found the money to shower at least 450 departing officials with payments of more than £100,000 each. Mr Davis is unlikely to find himself invited to sit at the Cabinet table any time soon, but he is hardly a lone voice, and the kinds of ideas he and others are advancing should be heard there and in the wider government. To this end, in his coming reshuffle, Mr Cameron should give ministerial jobs to MPs from his party who grasp the need for a muscular new agenda - a mix of wise heads such as Michael Fallon, the Tories" impressive deputy chairman, and members of the 2010 intake who have brought a thrilling intellectual edge to parliament, such as Dominic Raab, Elizabeth Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng. As Janet Daley writes on the page opposite, the economic challenges faced by the Western economies are grave and intractable and will not be met by lazy recourse to high taxes or a Micawberish policy of hoping that something will turn up. A brave government would now be looking permanently to diminish the size of the state, and to re-think, in a fundamental way, the tasks it should perform. Britain needs a bold vision - and there is a compelling one developing on the Conservative back benches. The question is, is Mr Cameron going to grasp it?