The Conservative party’s Manchester conference – the last before a general election next year – is intended to convey a sense of business-like focus. As one official put it: “We haven’t come here to drink champagne.” Yet the mood does lack fizz. Given the Tories’ likely re-ascent to power next year, the party’s new proposals on welfare reform were announced to a conference hall with a surprisingly large number of empty seats.

Monday’s announcement was meant to brand the Conservatives as the party of jobs and work, and to paint Labour as the party that dragged Britain into recession. This is not a straightforward sell: the Tories opposed fiscal stimulus. A hard line on benefit reform is designed to help them square this awkward circle.