There's lots to be said about David Cameron's conference speech, which is being treated as his last before power, but I'll concentrate on the democracy and civil liberties stuff.

Once again with Cameron I was left with the strong impression that his fine words and rhetoric aren't backed up by a genuine commitment to reform. Listening to his speech, my over-riding sense was one of continuity, of witnessing the latest incarnation of "Blatcherite" populism, as David Marquand calls it.

There is a clear hunger in the country for a new kind of politics and a reversal of the illiberal centralising tendencies of the last twelve years. Cameron shows signs of understanding this but his carefully chosen words stop short of anything that would fundamentally re-balance power in favour of the citizen.  

What now of Cameron's promise to give "power to the powerless" which he made in a speech at the height of the expenses crisis described by Anthony at the time as a "masterclass in rhetoric"? He's had all summer to think how it can be done.

In a penetrating article for the Guardian's Comment is Free before the conference, Peter Facey, of Unlock Democracy pointed out that Cameron's fine words on reform have not been matched by action and challenged the Conservative leader to engage constructively with Power2010.

Again, Cameron's speech today promised a lot but offered little. The Conservative leader likes people to think that he "gets it".  He said that the expenses crisis "reflected something deeper...the sense that people have been left powerless by big government". Spot on! But apart from some vague references to "decentralisation", "transparency", and "accountability" there was nothing on how he plans to reform a political system which, by his own admission, is "broken".

Cameron's remarks on the territorial politics of the UK also left many questions unanswered. He listed "devolution" as one of Labour's few important achievements and went on to say that he was "passionate about our union and will never do anything that puts it at risk."

Presumably this doesn't include not taking power, which would certainly aggravate more Scots into thinking about independence, but where does it leave Ken Clarke's proposal for English votes on English laws? And is Cameron saying he will seek to block a referendum on Scottish independence? What does he think about the debate over more powers for the Assembly in Wales?

On civil liberties, the Tory leader was marginally more promising. One of the things that defines the British, said Cameron, is that we are "sceptical of authority". And that's why we'll have no truck with "42 days, ID cards, the surveillance state and the right of all sorts of government bodies to come into our house."

He promised to "sweep this rotten edifice away" and also hinted he'd abolish the Independent Safeguard Authority which requires people to "register with the government to take a friend's kids to football".  

These things are welcome, but when you consider the scale of the "edifice" that is Labour's draconian hi-tech state, much of it catalogued by us for the Convention on Modern Liberty earlier this year, this only scratches the surface.

And when you also consider Chris Grayling's conference speech, which puts him in the populist authoritarian mould of Labour Home Secretaries; Cameron's cosiness with Murdoch and the Sun, and the party's commitment to repeal the Human Rights Act, you'd be forgiven for greeting the Conservative commitment to liberty with a heavy dose of scepticism.