This is the first conference since the election where the Tories won a majority and the first since Labour chose an unelectable leader. But, strikingly, George Osborne chose to use his speech to emphasise how the Tories must show the millions of working people who voted Labour in May that they ‘are on their side’.
Osborne is a man seized of the opportunity presented to the Tories by Labour’s lurch to the left. He has spent the last few days picking off several of Labour’s best ideas. His aim to make sure that when—or, should I say if—the Labour party attempts to return to the centre ground of British politics, it will find the Tories already camped there.
Osborne summed up his mission like this:
‘Do you know what the supporters of the new Labour leadership now call anyone who believes in strong national defence, a market economy, and the country living within its means? They call them Tories. Well, it’s our job to make sure they’re absolutely right.’
It is through this frame that the announcements coming out of Manchester are best seen. They are designed to help the Tories occupy the common ground of politics and to show these voters that the Tories really are on their side. This is a Tory recognition that their victory in May was based more on fear of Labour than on love for them. As David Cameron said the other day, the Tories think that Corbyn has given them a chance to get back to having the support of 43 percent or so of voters, a level of support that many Tories thought the party would never achieve again. But if the Tories are to do this, then the implementation of their politics will have to match their one nation rhetoric.
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