David Cameron has helped his party rediscover its most lethal weapon: loyalty

For the first time in perhaps a decade, not a drop of blood has been shed on the floor of a Conservative party conference. What was for so many years a vicious gladiatorial arena this week turned into a serene botanical garden. According to precedent, this should have been the conference when David Cameron faced protest from a party which he has dragged through all manner of ideological contortions. But instead, he received the polite applause of an optimistic audience. It is not at all natural.

Nor was it particularly helpful. The script which Conservative managers had written for the week was one where Mr Cameron and his lieutenants would demonstrate his steely resolve by facing down the wicked ‘Tory Right’. The speeches of the shadow Cabinet were fortified with menacing sentences. There would be no bowing to pressure, and the Cameroon army was braced to withstand the charge of the refuseniks. But the enemy did not turn up — at least not in any numbers.