little attempt to pretend that the 'no time for a novice' line wasn't aimed at David Miliband as much - if not more - than David Cameron," he wrote. Forsyth envisaged an opportunity for the Tories at their conference: "Most voters realise that there is a huge financial crisis on but they do not know what has caused it or what should happen now. A huge prize awaits the politician who can explain to the electorate in plain English why this crisis has occurred and what should be done now."

The Spectator's editor Matthew D'Ancona was a little more generous: "Cheesy, vacuous, and occasionally brilliant. From the appearance of Sarah Brown, Michelle Obama-style, to the implicit dig at [David] Cameron for parading his children, to the

eschewing of statistics – "that's not just a number" - from the driest political statistician of them all, to the hokey soundbite "one hope at a time", this was pure, shameless, vintage political theatre. Cynical as hell, but splendid, too."

Abroad though, the reception was warmer. The Washington Times said that "Brown energized his governing Labor Party's annual conference with an address studded with pledges on the organization's totemic issues and attacks on the opposition Conservatives."

And Dave Prentis, the General Secretary of Unison, the public sector union, was delighted: "This is exactly the sort of agenda that people wanted to hear from their Labour government. The PM made it absolutely clear that the NHS