DAVID CAMERON shrugged off gloom about the looming spending cuts yesterday with a call for people to become “doers and go-getters” to help him build the Big Society.

In an upbeat speech to close the Conservative conference, the Prime Minister tried to set out a vision to put Britain back on its feet – while admitting people were anxious about the services to be slashed and the jobs lost.

It was a vision that returned to his much-criticised Big Society theme, but one which echoed Lord Kitchener’s famous wartime rallying cry by telling the public: “Your country needs you.”

People were urged not only to set up schools, join neighbourhood groups and run parks, but also encouraged to set up their own businesses to restore prosperity.

Mr Cameron said: “It takes two. It takes two to build that strong economy. We’ll balance the budget, we’ll boost enterprise – but you start those businesses that lead us to growth.”

In contrast to the “selfishness of the Labour years”, he would lead a Britain of “doers and go-getters, where people step forward not sit back, where people come together to make life better”.

And he urged the country: “The new school in your neighbourhood – go and demand it.

“The beat meeting on your street – sign up. The neighbourhood group – join up.

That business you always dreamed of – start up.

“When we say ‘we are all in this together’ – that is not a cry for help, but a call to arms.”

But Mr Cameron also renounced a central tenet of Thatcherism, saying: “I don’t believe in laissez-faire. Government has a role, not just to fire up ambition, but to help give it flight.”

The Prime Minister left the hall in Birmingham to the stirring sound of Marvyn Gaye’s Sixties soul classic, with its lyric: “It takes two, baby. To make a dream come true, just takes two.”

There was a surprisingly short passage about the huge cuts to come, but one which included the acknowledgement: “There are jobs that will be lost.

“There are things government does today that it will have to stop doing.”

However, Mr Cameron said departments could lose seven per cent of their budgets in each of the next four years, adding: “Remember, a lot of businesses have had to make the same or bigger savings.”

And he said the cuts had to be made, saying: “I wish there was an easier way, but I tell you, there is no other responsible way.”

Hague’s echo of Thatcher

WILLIAM HAGUE echoed Margaret Thatcher as he defended the forthcoming spending cuts, saying: “There is no option but to do it.”

In an interview with The Northern Echo, the Foreign Secretary also branded the reductions “Labour’s cuts”, because they were the consequence of Gordon Brown’s bungling.

And he denied David Cameron’s sudden decision to promise tax breaks to married couples was a panic measure triggered by a Tory grassroots revolt over child benefit cuts.

Mr Hague, the Richmond MP, said: “There is no panic over this, because we will put in place the policy the Chancellor announced on Monday.

We will carry it through.

“We know there will be a bit of flak along the way but, in the end, people would not thank us for not carrying through these tough but fair choices.”

Asked if the tax cuts for marriage were a bribe for unhappy, wealthy Tory supporters, Mr Hague replied: “There is no sop here. In our coalition agreement, we state our position on transferable tax allowances.”

Mr Hague chose to defend the spending cuts – £72bn over four years, to be announced on October 20 – with a phrase strikingly similar to Lady Thatcher’s famous cry of “there is no alternative”.

He said: “There is no option but to do it. These are not really our cuts, they are Labour cuts, because they left us with a budget that cannot be sustained.”