David cameron

Boris Johnson must be one of the very few politicians in the world to make the audience laugh before they even start their speech. Just by walking on stage, he has the effect of a good comedian: the punters start to smile, in anticipation of some good one-liners. In today’s case, Boris got a standing ovation before he opened his mouth. Here is the man judged by Ladbrokes as the most likely next Conservative leader, but he had not come to stir. The Prime Minister – who lavished praise on the Mayor last night – was in the hall. It was all Big Society (BoJo division): affordable housing and a reprise of his January speech about restoring London’s identity as a union of villages.   But, he sounded several clear notes of defiance.

Today’s papers resound with the news that Theresa May is resisting Liberal Democrat opposition to close the loophole over the “right to family life”, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This change, it is argued, will ensure that foreign criminals are deported so that the courts protect, as David Cameron put it, “the United Kingdom”.  The announcement is a carefully choreographed step to differentiate the Tories from the Liberal Democrats.

The abiding image of this conference may be the sight of Steve Hilton apparently shepherding the turbulent Andrew Tyrie into a booth, from which Tyrie emerged singing George Osborne's praises. "A huge step forward…you can some consistencies," he said, which was an endorsement of sorts. What did everyone else make of it? As you can see, David Cameron looked morose at times, but the mood in the hall oscillated between sobriety and quiet optimism, matching Osborne's blend of austerity and promise for the future. Fleet Street is similarly conflicted: no paper gives him an unqualified endorsement, but no paper entirely rubbishes him either. The Times concludes (£), as Tyrie did on Saturday, that Osborne is strong on austerity and weaker on growth.

In a surprisingly testy interview on the Andrew Marr show, David Cameron defended the government’s approach to Europe, the economy and planning. But before the interview really got going, Cameron had to reiterate his Sunday Times’ apology (£) to women for the patronising comments he has made in the Commons chamber. This is hardly an ideal start to conference for a party leader who is struggling to maintain female support. On the Eurozone, Cameron was blunt that its problems were a threat to “the British economy and the world economy”. He also risked a clash with Nicolas Sarkozy by demanding that “action needs to be taken in the coming weeks to strengthen Europe’s banks”.

Treasury Committee Chairman, Andrew Tyrie, has shaken the nascent Tory conference with a coruscating statement about the government’s growth plan and general legislative programme. He writes, in a detailed policy document for the Centre for Policy Studies that is political in its emphasis as much as it is economic: ‘There is much to do, and it is not just a question of gaps in policy. A coherent and credible plan for the long-term economic growth rate of the UK economy is needed.

Senior Tories are saying that there won’t be many attacks on Ed Miliband from the party’s big hitters at conference. They are concerned that aggressive assaults on him could win him public sympathy. But both Cameron and Osborne respond to one of the central arguments of Miliband’s speech in their pre-conference turns. Cameron writes in the Mail that ‘the role for government is not to single out good and bad industries, it’s to make it easy as possible for all industries, all businesses, to grow, invest and take people on.