Cameron’s speech: live blog

1405, Peter Hoskin: Welcome to the Coffee House team’s live blog of David Cameron’s conference speech.  Just keep refreshing to get the latest. 

The Tory leader’s not expected on stage until around 1430, but preview snippets of his speech suggest that the headline message will be: “Britain needs change, not experience”.  In the meantime, here’s one for you to ponder: was Tony Blair as good a PM as Winston Churchill?  That’s certainly what Mrs Blair seems to think… 

1412, PH: Make that 1452 for Cameron’s ETA.

1420, James Forsyth: Cameron’s mission today is to show the public that he—not Gordon Brown—is the leader Britain need in these tough times. He must demonstrate that he understands what has caused the financial crisis and that he knows how to deal with the consequences. Without sounding shrill or excessively partisan, he needs to make clear the economic failings of Gordon Brown.

1430, PH: The Tories must glad that they decided against cutting their conference short in response to the financial turmoil – an idea that they apparently gave a lot of consideration to.  Of course, things are almost certainly set to worsen, but the markets rallying as they did yesterday seems to have robbed the story of much of its immediacy.  The likelihood is that Cameron’s speech won’t be completely submerged by global events, as many Tories feared a couple of days ago.  As James has written, the Tory leader now has a golden opportunity to cast himself as the right man for these troubled times.

1437, PH: George Osborne has said that he’s “absolutely delighted” with the Government’s pledge to increase protection for savings.  A sign of just how (outwardly?) cooperative the Tories intend to be.  Will we hear similar effusiveness in Cameron’s speech?  The current expectation is that – even if we do – it will be offset by plenty of attacks on Brown’s “Age of Irresponsibility”.

1445, JF: While we wait for Cameron, I can’t help but wonder what music Cameron is going to walk off to. You can get it if you really want was an inspired choice last year but would be rather out of kilter with the new, more sombre mood.

1450, JF: One little thing worth watching for is whether David Davis gets a name-check. If he doesn’t, it will be a further sign of how his resignation gamble has not paid off.

1451, JF: The Tories are parading a selection of their new candidates, Shaun Bailey just gave a feisty speech about how the Tories are the change. One wonders how many of the 2010 intake will be in the Cabinet by 2014.

1452, PH: The shadow cabinet are filtering on to the stage now.  Expect Cameron shortly.  Just a couple of videos to get through first.

1455, JF: The shadow cabinet come out onto the stage like a football team. These moments are always slightly cringe-worthy.

1457, PH: Liam Fox is introducing a video piece on the armed forces. There was some consternation about just how little the military were mentioned at the Labour conference – especially in Brown’s speech. The Tories are looking to capitalise on that.

1500, Fraser Nelson: Davena Rankin’s speech is worth noting here, for a rather beautiful way she summed up what the party is about. She fought Glasgow East (where the Tories tread water) and said she may not be considered a “typical Tory” as she is a “Scottish woman, spent years in the public sector and have stood out on picket lines. But I am a true Tory because I believe the power to change society is in all of us, not with those in Whitehall”. This may sound like a cliché to Labour types, but to me it is a loaded little credo. Being a Conservative fundamentally means faith in humankind, and mistrust in political power. Trust that people will make better, more humane and more economically productive decisions than government can do on their behalf. A belief that power truly belongs with the many, not the bureaucratic few. In an era of plenty political cross-dressing, here is a real genuine dividing line between Cameron and Brown. It’s crucial to send out these messages: you may have your reservations about Cameron but this is his cause. Shifting power not just from Labour to Tory, but from the state to the people. We could hear plenty more of this.

1502, PH: Here’s Cameron now.  He gets a standing ovation.  His tie, incidentally, is Tory blue.

1503, PH: Cameron kicks off with the claim that all the Tories “are singing the same tune”.  Creates a contrast with Brown’s with Brown’s divided Government.

1503, FN: It’s a longstanding trick of political parties to delay the Leader’s Speech and force the television channels to broadcast extra stuff – fundraising appeals, if they’re really cheeky. The Tories used this device to run a sneaky video saluting the armed forces, which I thought was just superb. They had something like two sentences in Brown’s speech, for a country fighting two wars just appalling. This was a full-on Union flag, salute-the-troops video which backed right on to Cameron’s speech. So a great intro.

1504, FN: The Guardian said today that he’d have no jokes – and Nick Watt was, as ever, very well-informed. Cameron’s remarks about his party “singing the same tune” in a Symphony Hall does not qualify as a joke.

1505, JF: Then, straight into the economy. A repetition of his bi-partisan plea from yesterday but then he moves onto Brown’s mistakes: ‘We must not hold back from being critical about the decisions over the last ten years that have brought us to this point’

1506, JF: Osborne and Hague singled out for praise—the shadow cabinet is no longer a big four but now a big three.

1507, FN: “I repeat: we will not allow what happened in America to happen here. We will work with the government in the short term to protect our economy.” And I repeat: this is nonsense. This isn’t America, we don’t have a Tory-controlled Congress. Brown has a parliamentary majority, the Tories couldn’t stop him legislating if he tried. Very well-judged posturing though, as his bipartisan “pledge” was repeated all over television yesterday.

1508, PH: Cameron’s really majoring on the Armed Forces here. “I’m 100% behind our military”.  Lots on how they need better equipment.  Liam Fox must be wondering whether this is the spending commitment he always seems to have been denied.

1510, JF: After some brief words on the crisis, Cameron moves onto Afghanistan. Presumably, the economy will form the second half of the speech.

Cameron then talks passionately about respect for the armed forces. He sounds convincing and it draws a clear contrast with Brown who devoted only a few lines to the forces in his conference speech.

1512, PH: “Wasn’t it great to have the Georgian Prime Minister here earlier, making that speech.”  Cameron’s capitalising on what was quite a coup.

“For me the most important word is ‘reponsibility'”.  Trying to draw a direct contrast with the “Age of Irresponsiblity”.  Cameron hasn’t actually mentioned Brown yet, but he’s already got several effective digs in.

1513, FN: “I want to thank George Osborne, William Hague and all my team in the Shadow Cabinet”. Strange to hear him single out these two but it reflects what he’s been saying in private for for some months now . He seems keen to present a troika, hence his wee photoshoot yesterday. Osborne, yes, but the public hears very little from Hague. This will have to change if Cameron really wants to present him as being one of the two backups. He has Osborne and Hague sitting on either side behind him, laying on the requisite array of facial expressions for the benefit of the cameras. Plus I still haven’t heard anything to suggest the real power not the a quartet: Hilton, Cameron, Osborne, Coulson.

1516, PH: Cameron lays down the gauntlet to Alex Salmond: “I don’t want to be the Prime Minister of England, I want to be Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.”

1518, FN: “Many people wrongly believe the Conservative party is only about freedom” and goes on to define libertarian as being able to do what you want regardless of the effects on others. Oh dear. There’s a book called the Libertarian Reader which I hope someone sends him for Christmas. Even more depressing ‘Social Responsibility” my least favourite Tory theme, makes a comeback. Every time he tries to bring this theme to life he just baffles the audience.

1518, JF: One can pick all sorts of holes in Cameron’s statement about his personal beliefs but this is politically powerful stuff. He looks and sounds convincing. People tuning into him properly for the first time, are going to be mighty impressed. The contrasts with Brown are stronger for being implicit not explicit.

1519, PH: Cameron’s getting into the “change, not experience” theme now.  Great line about how Callaghan may have had plenty of experience by 1979, but “thank God we got rid of him, and got Margaret Thatcher instead.”  No direct mention of Brown yet, but plenty of sly analogies pointed in his direction.

1520, JF: One can pick all sorts of holes in Cameron’s statement about his personal beliefs but this is politically powerful stuff. He looks and sounds convincing. People tuning into him properly for the first time, are going to be mighty impressed. The contrasts with Brown are stronger for being implicit not explicit.

1520, FN: Good bit of coded Brown bashing “not making a decision because you’re afraid of the consequences is bad”…. “go with your conviction, not your calculation”. The popular thing “might look good for a while, but the right thing is always right”. And credit to Cameron: standing up for the union and capitalism are principled, vote-losing positions. I believe he is quite sincere here.

1523, JF: An Obama-like framing of how the real risk is more of the same not change, as Obama has demonstrated this works politically.

1524, JF: A bit of wholly justified banker bashing and then onto Brown’s big mistakes—removing the Bank of England’s regulatory role and excessive public spending.

1526, PH: Cameron’s delivering his clearest message yet on lowering public spending.  He’d ask his Cabinet to review every spedning programme, to see if it’s necessary. “But that won’t be enough,” he adds, “the real savings will come from reforming the public services”.

1526, FN: “Thank God we swapped [Callagan] for Margaret Thatcher.” Yes, yes yes. Great to see Cameron saluting The Lady – all part of her comeback. There’s a bar outside the conference centre called Reflex on Broad Street with pictures of Thatcher saying “remember the 80s”. That’s what I call rehab. Great bar, by the way. If anyone is in Birmingham I recommend it.

1528, FN: A-ha. The bankers. Brown’s mistakes. “When he gave the BoE the power to set interest rates” – except he didn’t. Interest rates are set by the MPC, a team handpicked by the Treasury. Sure, they meet in the Bank of England but may as well meet in the Dog & Duck. Interest rates are set by a Treasury-selected team of outsiders. He is on shaky territory with this “restoring the Bank of England’s power to rein in debt in the economy.” His policies just tweak the capital ratios, and there is still confusion in Tory ranks about whether this is intended as a tool to control debt levels. Which would be insane. There’s only one way to control debt, and that’s interest rates.

1528, JF: Same message as Osborne, we desperately want to cut your taxes but can’t yet.

1519, FN: “That fantastic speech by George Osbrone on Monday probably the finest by a Shadow Chancellor there’s ever been”. Hang on!! Osborne was good, but hardly superlative. I wonder if this is part of a Big Up Osborne and Hague campaign… Strange.

1531, PH: Recommitting to lower corporation tax.  Reducing red-tape and complexity will create room for a 3p cut in the mainstream rate.  The message: we may be talking tough to big business, but we’re going to show them some love as well.

1533, FN: “We do not believe in tax cuts financed by reckless borrowing” – and neither does anyone else, apart from Gordon Brown before by-elections. Drives me mad when Cameron and Osborne wheel out this “I am a fiscal conservative” routine and make out there’s a huge constituency of Tories wanting “unfunded tax cuts”.

1535, FN: “I believe that people create jobs, not governments”. Good to remind Brown of the point, but is this controversial?

1536, PH: Now Cameron’s attacking elf’n’safety culture, as Littlejohn would put it.  Seems to get a healthy round of applause from it, too.  Could this be an underused attack on Labour, that we’re about to see more of?

1537, FN: Just like Osborne, he promises to stand firm against tax cutters then promises a tax cut – this time on corporation tax. “Build a high speed rail network that links Manchester, London, Leeds – in that way we can rebalance Britain’s economy.” No, just let them cut their local tax and compete that way. As if we have enough money for this railway of his. Expect it to be dropped pretty quickly…

1537, JF: Cameron goes after David Miliband’s statement about how without the government you get left behind. This section probably seemed a lot more important to the Tories a fortnight ago.

1539, JF: Cameron does the anti-politics thing, attacking the Westminster problem. I guess, though, that Cameron having been in Westminster since leaving university has given him a good chance to study it!

1540, FN: Broken Politics – this is his Obama-esque riff which he tried in Cardiff. Good to see it making a comeback, mentioning Plasma Screens and  “the wretched John Lewis list” they all have to go.

1542, JF: Personalises the section on the NHS with the experience of one of his constituents whose wife died of MRSA. As Cameron must know having being involved in the war of Jennifer’s ear, this is always politically quite high risk.

1544, PH: There’s a rich seam of public service reform running through this speech.  Cameron pledges to give patients more information on the NHS, so that they can exercise greater choice on where to get treated.  Doctors shouldn’t be “accountable to Whitehall”.  Shame that actual Tory health policy – which has provider interests at heart – isn’t keeping up with this rhetoric.
1546, JF: If it was not for the financial crisis, Cameron’s section on the broken society would be setting the political weather. This is Cameron at his best. It showcases all of his best qualities.

1548, FN: I’ve never see Cameron do anger in a speech before, and I think that device of reading out the bureaucratic letter from Alan Johnson worked well.  “Four ways to make a complaint but not one way for Mr Woods’ wife to die with dignity – God we’ve got to change that”. You need a bit of anger.
 
1551, JF: If several recent Conservative leaders had said ‘I get the modern world’ it would have been—fairly or unfairly—met with derision. But from Cameron it rings true.

1553, FN: Just superb passage on the Broken Society “some say our society isn’t broken. I wonder what world they live in”. Amen. “Leave aside there are council estates in this country where the life expectancy is lower than the Gaza Strip….” This is true for the entire City of Glasgow.  Then he darted onto what the left regards as its territory: the number of illiterate boys in prison, Blair’s “causes of crime”. He’s on strong, comfortable ground here. I could listen to him on this for ages.

1554, JF: Michael Howard gets a name-check. No mention yet for David Davis.

1555, PH: Cameron talks about “declaring war” on all-must-have-prizes schooling, and rails against an education system which can – and did – give marks for a pupil writing ‘f*** off’ on an exam paper.  Much as with the elf’n’safety theme earlier, there’s more than a smattering of Littlejohn-esque common sense to all this.  You can almost here Cameron ending each paragraph, with “You couldn’t make it up…”

1556, JF: Cameron declares war, ‘almost literally’, on the all must have prizes culture and dumbing down. The hall goes wild. In many ways, this is the most conservative speech I’ve ever heard Cameron give.

1559, JF: A justified piece of praise for IDS for helping make the Tories the party of social justice and David Davis does get a mention.

1601, FN: A “declaration of war” on the enemies of reform in teaching! At least he knows what he’s up against, because it will be a war. Great to hear him explicitly link social mobility to “radical school reform” and David Davis (there’s your name-cheCk, James) quoted calling them the “victims of state failure.” He’s wonderfully unapologetic about the ‘broken society’.

1604, PH: Boris gets a name-check, and a big cheer.

1605, JF: The length of the speech, it is pushing an hour now, suggests that the remarks on the economic crisis have been bolted on to a toned-down version of the original speech.

1605, FN: Oh this is great. “Progressive ends, Conservative means” is a revolution, he’s right. Building up to a great peroration, methinks…

1606, JF: Listening to the activists clap Boris, one wonders if a mention of his name will at some point produce a Mo Mowlam moment.

1606, PH: And that’s it – Cameron ends with a prediction of a “better future”.  Expect the Coffee House team’s overall responses shortly.

1606, FN: What a signoff. “Leadership, character, judgement – that is what the country needs at a time like this and that is what the modern Conservative Party offers” Then Declaring his “faith in human nature” he saluted “our remarable capacity to innovate, to overcome obstacles… we can and will come through, we always do, not because of the government but the people of Britain. Together in the hope, in the belief, in the knowledge that better times will lie ahead.” Superb.

Overall

James Forsyth: Cameron’s rebuttal of Brown’s experience argument was strong and the personal touches showed what an able politician he is. But I think that Cameron missed a chance to show that the public that he really is in command of the economic issues.

Peter Hoskin: There’s much to be admired in the “direction of travel” that Cameron’s just set out – especially with regards to public service reform.  But the scattershot approach of the speech mean that nothing ever quite got beyond that “direction of travel” stage – there were no specifics, and no substantive explication of why and how the Tories would manage the economy better.  For that reason, it’s got to be chalked up as a missed opportunity.