There was something rather surreal about David Cameron’s speech yesterday. Much of it was admirable and far to the left of any modern definition of what a Tory is. Macmillan would have been heartened. Thatcher would have scoffed. She had a word for Tories who leaned left. Wet. There was certainly nothing wet about Teresa May’s speech the day before. In reality she and Cameron were saying opposite things, as many commentators have already remarked.
The other aspect of Cameron’s speech which intrigues is that it does not link up with most of his government’s economic programme which, without modification, not only cannot possibly deliver the good things to which Cameron aspires, but actually prohibits them. Unless he knows something we don’t. Could Osborne have a rabbit in his hat for the Autumn Spending Review?