An ambitious agenda that questions the role of the state

David Cameron and George Osborne have set a hugely ambitious agenda in the spending review.

Easily the most important part of the Chancellor's agenda is the posing of "fundamental questions" about the role of the state. What services that Whitehall currently provides from the taxpayer's hard-earned money might better be provided by someone else, perhaps with different funding?

Just posing the question goes beyond the immediate problem of cutting the £156 billion deficit and into the wilder territory of changing the relationship between citizen and the state.

Linked to this is the aim of engaging ordinary voters with the cuts debate. On one level that means asking the public to nominate where the axe should fall — and as any inner-city MP's postbag will testify, the employed population has robust views on the amounts of money going to "scroungers and cheats".

On a deeper level, this is about challenging the assumptions about what people can claim as a right or should give as a duty. Mr Cameron has made no secret that he would like volunteering and charities to have a bigger role.

It is also a matter of dipping the public's hands in the blood of spending cuts, just as Mr Cameron made sure his Lib-Dem partners also reddened their hands by signing up to the Tory spending reductions.

He cannot manage it without public participation. Canada, which provided the blueprint for successful large-scale cuts, showed the importance of explaining and preparing opinion, forging the "narrative" of necessity.

In Mr Cameron's case, it is also obvious that he did not get the explicit mandate he hoped for at the general election, when more people voted for parties that were more cautious about cuts, so he needs to work harder.