Hague does his leader’s bidding

William Hague’s speech to conference today wasn’t the barn-burner of years past. It did include some jabs at Balls and Miliband. Hague joked that “their shadow Chancellor was Gordon Brown’s right hand man. And their leader was right hand man to the right hand man.”  But the overall tone was serious.

Politically, two things struck me as significant about the speech. First, Hague showed how determined the Tories are to play the Cameron card. The speech ended with a long tribute to the Prime Minister which called him “the leader for a better future”. The Tories are convinced that of the three party leaders, Cameron is the only one who strikes the country as a plausible PM. In an attempt to bolster that impression, Hague went out of his way to attack Miliband for being “too weak” to take on the unions and his own party.

Second, Hague refined the Tory attack on Ed Miliband’s speech last week.