David Cameron’s speech to Tory conference yesterday was supposed to be policy-free so that the media would pick up his list of achievements because it had no other choice. The problem with this, though, was that the papers found a policy in the speech anyway, and if they did splash on the speech, they chose this policy, not the ‘finish the job’ line or any other (although the Mail used the ‘Land of Hope is Tory’ line). It was on housing benefits for the under-25s, but it wasn’t exactly ready to be a set-piece conference announcement, more a fleeting reference to gain more applause in the hall.
Because the policy wasn’t quite ready, a rushed briefing came out when it was demanded. You can read the note in full at the bottom of this post. The reason I’ve included it is that it shows how little detail there is on it.
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