It is all set up for Dave

For a party facing certain defeat at the next election, these Tories are strikingly upbeat. Osborne’s speech has put lead in their pencil, they sense—to use a phrase—that the über modernisers have been slain and the focus now is about lower taxes, Conservative values and none of this “nasty party” stick they have taken from the platform for years. Osborne has teed up conference perfectly for Cameron, on whom everything now rests.