The Spectator's Notes
The Spectator's Notes
Charles Moore's Notebook
Blackpool
Such is the strange rhythm of politics that this turns out to be the most successful Conservative conference for many years. George Osborne, who only a week ago people kept telling me was a disaster, put in a commanding performance. His promise to lift the threshold of inheritance tax to £1 million did not provoke contempt for reverting to a ‘core vote’ strategy. Some say this is because, though not many pay the tax now, millions expect to one day. I suspect, too, that people actually like the idea that inheritance tax threatens them because the threat is a sort of status symbol. To say that you worry about it implies, without stating, that you have expectations, a concept beloved of the middle classes. My astute colleague George Jones also makes the point that Gordon Brown’s recent public appearance with Lady Thatcher may well have removed a big psychological reason for voting Labour. If he calls an election soon, he cannot try to frighten people with the Tory bogeywoman now that he has been seen grinning with her. With one bound, Mr Brown has set David Cameron free.
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John Learmonth
October 5th, 2007 6:43pmWhy is it a 'southern' view that Blackpool sums up all that is worst in British culture? Those of us lucky enough to live in the north think so too.