David Cameron has driven a social revolution in British Conservatism since becoming leader of the main UK opposition party in late 2005. The great fear has always been that ideas for fixing Britain’s “broken society” and delivering civic renewal would not be integrated with the party’s economic policy. But last week, George Osborne, shadow chancellor of the exchequer, signalled that the Conservatives are breaking with the neo-liberal absolutism of the past 30 years to forge a new approach to the market economy.

Mr Osborne could not have been clearer; he repudiated laisser faire economics and the libertarian philosophy that licensed its practice. He rightly extolled the virtues of markets and capitalism but also made three crucial moves to distance his party from the now clearly bankrupt ideology of the free-market fundamentalists.