A new blue dawn has broken, has it not? The prime minister lifted the key Blair phrase that ushered in 13 years of Labour rule and updated it to a time when, he hopes, his Conservative party can rule for that long and much more. David Cameron took to the stage in Manchester basking in the triumphant glow of a majority election win. And how he revelled in it; he crowed at the first sight of the exit poll, the demise of Ed Balls and Nigel Farage, the generational wipeout of this former coalition partners and Labour’s sheer indulgence in electing Jeremy Corbyn as its new leader. This was a politician at the very height of his powers, and he rightly scents an opportunity for this party to occupy the centre-ground safe in the knowledge that the opposition is off in its hinterland talking to nobody but itself. But as nearly always with Cameron, his rhetoric is disconnected from his actions – and there were performances at this week’s Conservative conference which will send a shudder down every Labour spine.

But first, the hard truth is that the Labour party has underestimated Cameron for each and every year of his past 10 years as Conservative leader. He was elected on 2005 on a pledge to be a different kind of Conservative. His speech today was perhaps his last attempt to cement the ‘one nation modern compassionate Conservative party’ he so desperately wants to bequeath to his successor. When he first emerged in 2005, the Labour party dismissed him. Then we mocked him. We never feared him. Only a few within Labour’s ranks identified then and now the danger he poses to our movement. Two devastating general defeats later, will some within the Labour party now listen? Cameron’s final mission is to witness the destruction of the Labour party, and he sowed the seeds today.

His attack on Jeremy Corbyn, though, as ‘security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising, Britain-hating’ was beneath the position of a prime minister. There is much to disagree with the new Labour leader on. But political parties quite frankly should have a full, honest and open debate about Trident. As for the nebulous context of who ‘loves’ their country more than the other – is this really a pillar on which to base British politics on?

Beyond Cameron’s ever-smooth presentation, however, were the realities of a Conservative government. Home secretary Theresa May delivered a thoroughly vile address to the conference hall yesterday in a squalid bid for the party leadership. This is all the more remarkable as May can be credited with being one of the few Conservatives who fronted up to the dire situation her ‘nasty party’ found itself in some 13 years ago. The cuts to tax credits are a direct breach of the manifesto the party stood on only five months ago, whilst the Tory mask of old – epitomised by Matthew Hancock’s and Jeremy Hunt’s recent remarks – is never far from slipping from Cameron’s ‘compassionate’ Conservative party.

The Conservatives will bask in their new dawn for now, but clouds are never far away. Europe, which received a paltry mention in the prime minister’s speech, is a topic which can still tear his party apart like no other. And even in the substance of his speech, on international aid, same-sex marriage, equality of opportunity and the causes of poverty, many within the hall never signed up to this agenda. These are the callous not compassionate Conservatives, and Cameron’s final failing may just well be that he never succeeds in taking them with him.

———————————

David Talbot is a political consultant. He tweets @_davetalbot