A thousand champagne-quaffing, canapé-munching Tories are crammed into a drab hotel function room by the Tower of London. The sell-out, sweltering, after-work reception for Conservative supporters from the City projects an unmistakable air of confidence, as the brokers and bankers assure each other that this time they really, actually, honestly can win. Politics is a welcome reprieve, perhaps, from business amid the credit crunch.

But the man who takes the microphone, his unlined face projected to the throng on video screens, cautions with a soft voice against hubris. “We’ve still got work to do,” George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, tells the sea of suits. “As I was coming through the crowd, someone asked me: ‘Are you another budding young Conservative?’ True story.” That self-deprecation is part of Osborne’s armoury of political skills. But the anecdote reflects the thrust of the criticisms that have been levelled at him, and will be used again at the next general election: isn’t he just too immature, too inexperienced, too insubstantial to run one of the world’s largest economies?