ANY doubts that David Cameron is serious about reinventing the Conservative Party should finally have been nailed yesterday.

He was bold - or brazen - enough to condemn a key component of the Conservative manifesto which he had helped to devise such a short time ago.

By announcing such a spectacular U-turn on plans to give subsidies to patients using private health schemes, Mr Cameron continued to blur the lines between the Conservative and Labour parties.

At this rate it will be hard for voters to differentiate between Mr Cameron and Tony Blair.

We believe in the National Health Service. We have campaigned with determination to highlight the need for radical investment in areas such as coronary care.

We therefore welcome Mr Cameron's bold decision to shift his party's position, and his forced admission that previous Conservative policy was fundamentally flawed.

That said, yesterday's announcement also underlines the challenge facing the new leader to find a way to make the Tories electable again after such a long time in the wilderness.

Mr Blair has so skillfully shifted Labour into the middle ground, with steps such as the introduction of elements of privatisation into the health service, that the opposition is left with very little room for manoeuvre.

And for all the early promise he has shown, Mr Cameron's ultimate task will be to convince the people of Britain that he offers something different.