A novice with the right ideas

For all its stunts, vacuities and plain deceptions, there was something undeniably compelling about Gordon Brown’s conference speech in Manchester. Here was an old stager, battered and bruised, giving his all to what may be his last such performance as Labour leader and Prime Minister. Even as he claimed to deplore the cult of political celebrity, he chose this moment to deploy, for the first time, all its most cunning tricks and sleights of hand.

Leave aside the nasty jibes at David Cameron’s family photo-ops and class background. There were two particular attacks to which the Tory leader must respond in his own conference address on Wednesday.

The first came early in Brown’s speech. ‘If people say I’m too serious,’ he said, ‘quite honestly, there’s a lot to be serious about — I’m serious about doing a serious job for all the people of this country.’ Unlike, by heavy implication, the flibbertigibbet PR man at the helm of the Conservatives. The second charge — directed at David Miliband as much as at Mr Cameron — was that ‘this is no time for a novice’.

Next week, the Tory leader must raise his game accordingly and respond fearlessly to the challenge. Mr Brown left Manchester with a stay of execution in his breast pocket — helped hugely by Mr Miliband’s alleged comparison of himself to Michael Heseltine. This allegation, first reported by the BBC on Monday night, is denied vigorously by the Foreign Secretary’s camp. It may not be true. Alas for Mr Miliband, it rings true.

Fortunately for Mr Cameron, Mr Brown also provided the Tories with much to get their teeth into at their own annual gathering. It has been a perennial complaint of the New Labour years that the two main parties are growing indistinguishable.