David Cameron, the leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, talks about government ceding its power to the people through technology.

It’s a bit of a Pollyanna viewpoint delivered by a skilled politician to an eager tech-oriented audience. But the TED2010 conference in Long Beach, Calif., is designed to provoke conversation about innovative ideas in technology, science, business, the arts and global issues.

And that it did. The comments about direct democracy generated by Cameron’s remarks are pretty remarkable.

Here’s a sample: