Michael Portillo: We must learn from our European partners

Following our second defeat, the Conservative Party's position is very grave. I joined the party when it was beginning an era of unprecedented strength. It's our duty to rebuild and pass on a vibrant Conservative Party to future generations. To do so we must be as brave today in embracing change as the party has had to be before when it faced crisis.

The Conservative Party has been successful over centuries precisely because its values were timeless but its policies were suited to the age. Conservatives believe in traditions and institutions but we also believe that those institutions must respond to the needs of the age. I want our party to be passionate in its commitment to the public services. We are elected to represent our constituents, we are elected to deal with the problems we see about us.

When I worked three shifts as a hospital porter, I was appalled at the conditions in which our nurses and doctors work. How can we not be roused when we see people wait in pain for years for operations? When I made a film for Channel 4, I travelled to the council estates where people live without hope of anything better in life, a poverty of aspiration as much as of money. In our schools, how can we be complacent if French and German children are achieving higher standards than ours? How can you not be moved when you see parents prepared to give up everything to pay for Saturday classes to help their children beat the defects in our system?

Conservatives must be prepared to look for wholly new solutions if that is what is required. The whole Shadow Cabinet will need to commit much time and intellectual effort to understanding the problems faced by doctors, nurses, teachers and police officers.

The Conservative Party must be the party of ideas, and I will initiate the broadest and most stimulating policy debate that the party has seen since 1975. It will involve not only the Shadow Cabinet but the whole Parliamentary Party. It will draw in the most distinguished experts from outside politics, some of whom will be party members and others of whom will not. Policy-making will be a collegiate effort. Inevitably, that means that I will not be making policy statements during this leadership campaign.

We will not be afraid to look at any solution that works. When I was small we took it for granted that the National Health Service was the best in the world. Alas, we cannot believe that now, and in all humility we must be prepared to learn lessons from others. I strongly believe that our European partners may have much to show us and to teach us. The Conservative Party can be confident enough of its principles and broad enough in its outlook to work through the issues and produce practical solutions.

I shall continue to advocate that Britain should have its own currency. But I believe that argument will be better received if it comes from a party which is devoutly internationalist. As Conservatives, we should celebrate diversity not be suspicious of it.

We have often been known as the party of opportunity, and we must acquire that mantle again. Opportunity is not for the few and not for the many, but for all: it is the hope and the ladder we extend to everyone.

I am not going to spend this campaign claiming advantages over the other candidates for the leadership. Perhaps the one thing to which I would lay claim are my failures, in particular my failure to hold my seat in 1997. It gave me a chance to return to the real world, a place where people travel by train and bus, where they strive to bring up their families, where they try hard at work but live for their life after work. This world is completely different from Westminster, and Parliament is held in contempt there.

And yet my father's political exile taught me to believe even as a child that there was nothing of greater value in the world than democracy. Because I think like that, I think we ought to try to make things better. And I think the Conservative Party, being humbled and out of office, is in the best position to commence the climb back.