Leading article: Who’s afraid of Labour now?

The Conservatives are granted only two tickets to Labour party conference: a shame, because there could have been no better morale booster for Tory troops. The merger between Labour and their union paymasters has become so advanced that shadow ministers speak about the joint ‘movement’ rather than the party. Dethroned Cabinet members are still wandering around with their old advisers, as if they can’t accept they have no department to run. The standard of debate in the conference’s fringe meetings suggests that Labour suffered not only defeat, but a lobotomy. There are no new ideas, as Ed Miliband demonstrated in his tortuous speech.

Miliband speaks about the need for welfare reform and to support ‘good’ business (rather than the wicked ‘predators’). Fundamentally, however, he regards economic liberalisation as an error which he would like to correct. The last 30 years are now spoken of as a giant economic mistake, as if they unleashed moral decay rather than national restoration. It is quite astonishing: Labour has chosen as its leader one of the few MPs who looks back to the 1970s with nostalgia.

This creates a substantial opportunity for George Osborne. The Chancellor is, like Gordon Brown, an intensely political man who judges economic policies by what the opposition might say about them. Other Cabinet members are struck by how, when he speaks about the economy, almost everything is discussed in reference to what Labour might do or say in response. It is as if he is fighting a permanent election, and feels he must govern through symbiosis. The more Labour is perceived to be strong, the more cautious Osborne is as a result. His cuts are just 1 per cent a year deeper than those Alistair Darling had planned.