This was no conference rabble rouser.
More a reassuring chat from that nice clean-cut young man who just popped in to explain how he could mend the country (watch it here). His message? That the other lot aren't wicked, they've tried awfully hard - but they've made a bit of a mess of things.
His aim? To demonstrate that he'd thought carefully about what had gone wrong and therefore knew how to put it right - quietly, systematically and without flashiness. Ah yes, that was the point of today. Convincing voters that though he may be slick, and able to deliver a speech of over an hour and with barely a glance at his notes, he's not flash.
The Tories spent this week spelling out and selling their policies. Today their leader tried to spell out and to sell who he is and what he would do. Forty three million voters may soon have a chance to decide if this is - as he claims - politics you can believe in.
First though, one man must decide whether to take him on. He's got just days to make up his mind.
David Cameron is to deliver his speech to the Tory conference without reading from a written text. He will, the Tories say, use handwritten notes to remind him of the key points but wants "to speak from the heart and to have the freedom to express what is in his head". The speech may be as long as an hour so he certainly won't have been able to memorise it all.
Brave. When you're behind you need to be.
UPDATE 01:20 PM: Now, lest you marvel at the idea of a man speaking without notes and assume that this means everything he says will come off the top of his head, let me set you straight. A speech writing team has been working on this speech for many weeks. The Tory leader will, I suspect, have memorised the key passages at the start and end of the speech which is made for TV. He will, I suspect, also have a series of bullet points and key phrases for the rest.
Mr Cameron has, of course, done this before - in the speech which secured him the leadership in this very hall two years ago - and when he won. The latter showed the problems you can get into without notes. He declared that he had six priorities and then only listed five.
