Leading article: Who’s afraid of Labour now?

The Conservatives are granted only two tickets to Labour party conference: a shame, because there could have been no better morale booster for Tory troops. The merger between Labour and their union paymasters has become so advanced that shadow ministers speak about the joint ‘movement’ rather than the party. Dethroned Cabinet members are still wandering around with their old advisers, as if they can’t accept they have no department to run. The standard of debate in the conference’s fringe meetings suggests that Labour suffered not only defeat, but a lobotomy. There are no new ideas, as Ed Miliband demonstrated in his tortuous speech.

Miliband speaks about the need for welfare reform and to support ‘good’ business (rather than the wicked ‘predators’). Fundamentally, however, he regards economic liberalisation as an error which he would like to correct. The last 30 years are now spoken of as a giant economic mistake, as if they unleashed moral decay rather than national restoration.