Allies at arm’s length: UK business returns with reservations to the Tory fold
The UK’s main opposition party has re-established its appeal to industry and the City of London but it is anxious to avoid the impression that it is an uncritical partner
Conservative party conference 2008
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At their party conference in Birmingham the resurgent Tories will curb any sense of triumphalism which they fear will play badly with voters at a time of economic crisis
Cameron ‘ready for difficult, unpopular rule’
A Conservative government would inherit ‘a huge deficit and an economy in a mess’, warned the opposition party’s leader as he rejected Gordon Brown’s claim that now was no time for ‘a novice’ to run Britain
‘Man with a plan’ ditches optimism
David Cameron’s speech ‘did the job’, a shadow cabinet minister said afterwards, before adding hastily: ‘more than did the job’
This was not his finest hour
David Cameron’s was a dog of a speech or. It was obviously reworked and rewritten over and over with each twist and turn in the crisis, presumably by many hands
Scent of power has talent queuing
The ‘changing of the guard’ for the Conservatives began in earnest two or three years ago, but it has markedly accelerated in recent months
Cameron offers support over crisis
The Conservative leader promised to join a bipartisan effort to defend the British banking system, avoiding the political wrangling that blocked a deal in Congress to prop up the US financial system
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Video reports from Birmingham
George Parker, the FT’s political editor, assesses David Cameron’s speech and looks back at the mood of the conference.
William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary on the financial crisis, Britain’s place in Europe and the Lisbon treaty.
Lionel Barber, the FT ‘s editor, reviews George Osborne’s speech
Analysis
Profile: George Osborne
Shadow chancellor George Osborne can expect a rapt audience when he addresses the Conservative party conference in Birmingham
Comment
We will help give banks the capital they need
Conservatives support government action when the foundations of the banking system are threatened, writes David Cameron
Cameron’s quest for relevance
With media attention focused mainly elsewhere, the UK Tory leader dealt well and directly at his conference with the charge of being inexperienced
Cameron faces the politics of hard choices
Events in the markets have shattered the illusion that politicians can have the best of all worlds all of the time, writes Philip Stephens
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