Robert Jenrick delivered a David Cameron-style speech as he launched his bid to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader on Friday.
He took the stage and laid out his vision for the Conservative Party in an address making little or no use of notes.
It had immediate echoes of Mr Cameron winning over Tory party members with his leadership speech at the party’s annual rally in 2005 in Blackpool where he beat favourite David Davis.
Mr Jenrick, MP for Newark, also heaped praise on Mr Cameron, stressing how the Conservatives had won over young voters in 2010.
He added: “With the right approach we can persuade young people again that it is in their interests to be Conservative.”
He highlighted the housing crisis, which meant many people in their 20s and 30s are still living with their parents as they are unable to afford their own home.
Former immigration minister Mr Jenrick pledged, if elected as leader, to breathe “new life into the party”.
With party members due to make the final choice, he promised to give them more power including on selecting candidates to be MPs.
Mr Jenrick told how he resigned as immigration minister in Mr Sunak’s government over the failures to deal with illegal immigration.
He was seen as on the Centre of the party but then to have tacked to the Right.
The main reason the Conservatives lost the election was continuing a "cycle of broken promises" on immigration, he said at his launch.
Asked to put a number on his proposed immigration cap, Mr Jenrick said: "I said that it would be in the tens of thousands. I'm open to it being less.”
He also took aim at spending and quangos in the health service, adding: "We allowed the lions on the frontline of the NHS to be let down by the donkeys in the back offices."
He later said similar problems were faced by many western countries, but added: "The particular problems we face as a country stem from the fact that the British system is not working for the British people.”
Mr Jenrick’s supporters appeared mainly from the Right of the party including Sir John Hayes, MP for South Holland and The Deepings.
The former housing minister told Conservative members at his launch rally in the East Midlands on Friday that the party has to undergo serious changes to regain voters’ trust.
In a campaign video this week, he said Mr Sunak’s party had been “unable or unwilling” to do what was required to reduce the number of people coming to the UK.
Hundreds of thousands of people “we didn’t need” had arrived legally while “dangerous” immigrants could not be deported, he said.
Mr Jenrick resigned from Mr Sunak’s government last year, claiming that the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda did not go far enough.
Bookmakers have Mr Jenrick as second favourite in the race behind shadow communities secretary Kemi Badenoch.
The two rivals from the right of the party are up against shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride, shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat, shadow home secretary James Cleverly and former home secretary Dame Priti Patel - with the winner named on November 2.
Just days ago, ex-Chancellor Lord Hammond praised the “very positive” message from Dame Priti about the need to unite the party and reach across the centre ground of British politics.
The field will be whittled down to four in time for the Tory conference in Birmingham in the autumn before MPs vote for a final two who will face a ballot of Conservative members.
The party faces the twin challenges of responding to the threat from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on the right, as well as winning back former heartlands in southern England which shifted to the Liberal Democrats.
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who bowed out of the race last week, warned the Tories have “no chance of winning the next general election” as long as Mr Farage’s outfit “is a viable alternative”.
Mr Jenrick refused to be drawn into whether Mr Farage and Reform MP Lee Anderson would be welcome in a Tory party under his leadership.
Asked if they and Ms Braverman would "feel comfortable" in a Conservative party he led, Mr Jenrick said: "It will definitely be a party in which my good friend Suella Braverman is comfortable. I want to build a big church, a big tent for this party.
"But it has to be a strong tent. I want to ensure that we are a big church, that it has a common creed.”
