Conservative leadership contender David Davis has vowed to lead his party back to victory with a "freedom-based" agenda.
The Warwick University graduate, and current favourite to take over from Tory leader Michael Howard later this year, said he believed British voters were reaching a ?tipping point? and were ready to support a change of Government.
Speaking to The Birmingham Post, he rejected the common perception at Westminster that he was a right-wing candidate, insisting he wanted to create a more open society where people were able to succeed regardless of their background.
Mr Davis, the son of a single mother who lived on a council estate and went on to gain a computer science degree in the early 1970s, warned that working class people now had fewer opportunities than when he was growing up.
The MP, currently shadow Home Secretary, made little secret of his intention to stand for the party leadership when the contest formally begins, probably in September.
He is planning to set out his thoughts on the direction the party should follow in a series of speeches, including one last night.
Attention has focused on Mr Davis?s background. But he said: ?Actually it was quite privileged.
?The simple truth of the matter is I was a council house boy at a time when you had all sorts of opportunities.
?Opportunities for people have gone down. I could go to grammar school, I could go to university and all the rest of it. Some of those privileges and opportunities are not so obvious now.?
So would he have gone to university if he had grown up in today?s society?
?Possibly not. But in a way, university is not the only issue. When I was at school, the brightest lad in the year wanted to be a banker.
?And when he had done what was then his O?levels, he left and did his banking exams. Well today, you would need a degree to do that.
?It is not just about education, it is about opportunities. There are all these perspex ceilings around.
?We have to think about how we do something about that.?
But after three devastating election defeats, can he really lead the Tories to victory?
?I think there is a mood - very often there is a tipping point. People think ?We?ve had enough, four more years is more than we can take?.
?Clearly they didn?t get there this time, but I think there is every chance next time.?
Labour would also have a new leader, Gordon Brown, who was more left-wing than Tony Blair, he said.
Although he is unlikely to formally announce his candidacy until September, Mr Davis plans to use the summer recess, which starts in a fortnight, to campaign.
?They will all go off on their hols and I will go wandering around the country.?
He said: ?Giving power back to individual citizens in order to raise standards. That is the thrust of the whole thing.
?Giving much more control over where your children go to school, who can provide the schooling, where you can go to hospital, and so on.
?All on the basis that we have some of the most expensive public services in the world, but they don?t actually deliver the outcome that everybody wants.?
He added: ?The very attempt to run everything from the centre forces a sort of rationing and prioritisation on people.
?We want to see more personalised healthcare where people have more clout, more power.
?You can?t do that across the board. You can?t say to people you can buy your own policemen, because that is a real public good.
?So you then have to go to the next stage, which is to make the police directly accountable . . . having directly elected police chief constables.
?The purpose of that is to make them more responsive, to do what people want. If the area wants more traffic policing then fine, or if it wants more burglars caught then that is where the resources should go.?
It also meant lowering taxes, he said. ?John F Kennedy once said, if you want to increase the amount of tax you take, lower tax rates.
?Ireland has done very well, with the economy growing very fast, and they are able to afford good public services because of the low tax rate.
?In fact, a low tax rate is actually the route to being able to afford good public services.
?In Australia, [Conservative Prime Minister] John Howard has been in control for roughly the same period as Tony Blair here.
?Our economy has grown by 25 per cent, theirs has grown by 33 per cent.?
Many commentators have portrayed Mr Davis as the right-wing candidate for the Tory leadership.
His chief rival is widely agreed to be shadow Education Secretary David Cameron, who is seen as a more left-wing or ?One Nation? candidate.
But Mr Davis rejects this view. He said: ?When the One Nation group was formed after the war, it wasn?t a left wing group. Enoch Powell was a member, for example. The point of it was that you are representing everybody, not one sector.
?I think this is the right approach, and I think Margaret Thatcher did that. She is not thought of as a One Nation Tory, but actually, look who voted her in.
?People in council estates, people exercising the right to buy, people starting businesses for the first time.?
He added: ?The test of a future Tory policy is what it does for the least well-off in our society. Not the richest, but ordinary people.?
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