Fringe benefits

The Tory party conference this year was a remarkable success, a festival of conservatism with an impressive array of radical ideas on display. But almost all of them could be found in fringe events, and pitifully few in the hall of the conference. Even Cabinet members complained that the main event lacked fizz. Discussion centred around various ideas being discussed by backbenchers, rather than -ministers. The intellectual leadership of the parliamentary party has passed to its lowest ranks.

David Cameron can take the credit for this shift. As opposition leader, he spent years working on policies to improve the calibre of parliamentary candidates, and has ended up with perhaps the most impressive cohort of young MPs delivered by any postwar election. The fringes were such an attraction because the Conservatives now have a striking number of MPs with passion, originality, fluency and independence of spirit. They seemed interested in what they can do in government, not in the mechanics of winning elections.