Tory Conference: Baby, It's Cold Outside

Inside the shiny arcade of Birmingham's "indoor" International Conference Centre, the mood is unseasonably warm. The sun shines through its glass facade onto the beaming faces of the volunteers, think-tankers and prospective parliamentary candidates who, for the first time, are facing the prospect of electability. Until a few months ago, electability to the Tories was what a mortage currently is to first-time buyers – less a distant prospect than a virtual impossibility. But while the market for Conservatism has rebounded, the market for everything else has plummeted.

While the Tories might have expected this week to bask in the reflected glow of the electoral pyre that is the modern Labour party, chill winds are blowing outside. With cruel timing, Bradford & Bingley chose this morning to be bailed out by the government, and the Belgian bank Fortis also asked the collected governments of Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to help prop it up.

If this last sounds insignificant, it is not. Fortis is one of the twenty biggest banks in the world, and far larger than any of the British banks so far forced to ask the government for help. The global banking world continues to crumble in spite of the efforts of George Bush, Gordon Brown, Hank Paulson, Uncle Tom Cobley and all.

While the Tories might have expected this week to bask in the reflected glow of the electoral pyre that is the modern Labour party, chill winds are blowing outside.

What, then, of the efforts of the Tory frontbench to prove they can transcend their novice status and help save the (financial) world? George Osborne is delivering his keynote speech on the economy this morning, and expectations here at the conference are low, mainly as it was telegraphed in a special 40-page document made available last night, presumably so that we hacks could understand it before reporting it.

The shadow Chancellor was the golden boy of last year's conference, having suggested non-domiciles return a higher percentage of their earnings to the tax payer than you or I, a policy snapped up and then thrown out by Alastair Chancellor, a man so weak-spined it's surprising he's not just a pile of oddly-eyebrowed flesh.

But this year he's in a bit of a bind. As theirs has historically been the party of industry the Conservatives can hardly denounce capitalism. But capitalism's imminent implosion leaves them looking tarnished as a result. Osborne's vague package of city regulation and state borrowing controls could end up leaving them looking exactly as Gordon Brown portrayed them – a bunch of neophytes. The financial circumstances of the day are not suited to a party which has been out of power for more than 10 years.

Osborne's vague package of city regulation and state borrowing controls could end up leaving them looking exactly as Gordon Brown portrayed them – a bunch of neophytes.

All of which means little to the happy delegates in Birmingham. One councillor I spoke to this morning said Cameron and Osborne's double act at yesterday's conference opening – an unprompted duo of speeches designed to show they would tackle the global financial crisis head-on – had the desired effect of showing the Conservative supporters they were taking this seriously, and not just waiting for Labour to fall out of power.

"It didn't look stage-managed," said our man. "In fact, it even looked awkward. But it showed that this is not a government run by spin, it is a government that is ready to stand up when the circumstances demand it, stand up and be a serious party that is ready to lead." Clearly the Tory supporters are looking on the bright side of life, even though dark clouds are gathering outside.