CONSERVATIVE leader David Cameron revealed his plans to overhaul the political system when he visited Milton Keynes yesterday.
Only two months ago he was in town with his roadshow, 'Cameron Direct', but his speech at the Open University yesterday was more 'Cameron Dissects'.
The Tory leader gave his own grim diagnosis of the political crisis sparked by the MPs' expenses scandal, from raging residents to 'Orwellian surveillance', before outlining his solution to deliver the most dramatic redistribution of power in living memory.
When asked how his plans would affect Milton Keynes, Cameron said that a Conservative government would axe housing targets and government quangos.
He said: "Get rid of the targets, get rid of the quango's, get rid of the regional spacial strategies, and pass the power down to local councils and local people.
"For villages and small towns around Milton Keynes, if people want to come together and say we don't want to have 100 houses dumped on us by some planning consent, we would like a 10 per cent expansion of the village, and this is where we want them to go, under our plans they would be allowed to do that.
"If you asked people do you need more homes they say yes, if you ask them do you trust the current planning system they say no.
"We're all about devolving power to the lowest level, which is the individual in the community."
Cameron said he would consider the introduction of fixed-term parliaments and pass power from the political elite to the man in the street.
He cited the OU as a good example of successful modernisation and admitted that he chose Milton Keynes partly because he hoped to win people over in a 'highly marginal constituency'.
His views were echoed by Mark Lancaster, MP for North East Milton Keynes, who said: "We have to re-engage local people.
"Here in Milton Keynes people don't like the fact that we have an unelected quango deciding our future - Milton Keynes Partnership.
"I've always called for that relationship to change, to devolve to local people and it's so fitting that David should come here to make that announcement because it affects Milton Keynes more than anyone."
Other proposals include reducing the House of Commons by 10 per cent and publishing the expenses of all public servants paid more than £150,000 a year online.
Dr Richard Heffernan, an OU lecturer in British politics, said: "The speech has been a great success in the sense that it was trailed by all the newspapers.
"Essentially it was a declaration of intent without necessarily telling us what it was that the Government will do in terms of the changes.
"It's a helpful way to successfully electioneer, by entering into an important debate."