Will financial turmoil drive voters back into Gordon Brown’s arms?

Fears are growing among top Tories that the global financial meltdown could send shares in David Cameron crashing. The agenda for the Conservative conference in Birmingham had been carefully drawn up to focus on the economy, the NHS and 'broken Britain'. The plan was to use it to set out the party's next steps to power with a series of policy announcements designed to counter accusations that the Tories are all spin and no substance.

That strategy has gone out the window and Cameron has had to write not one, but two, additional speeches to project himself as a substantial figure to rival Gordon Brown in times of crisis. Hence his emergency appearance in a packed conference hall this morning, promising to cast party differences aside in the national interest. "Democracies were being tested" and people were "confused and concerned" about their jobs, savings and pensions, he said.

It was therefore a time for political parties to "stick together". He pledged not to allow the sort of "political wrangling" that scuppered the US plan to bail out Wall Street to be repeated in this country. He also made the fairly empty gesture of dropping his party's objection to the Banking Reform Bill to speed its passage through Parliament (Labour could have used its parliamentary majority to get the measure on the statute book anyway).

The announcement that he was about to speak sent Tory activists into a frenzy: Was he about to do a John McCain and cancel the event? And if so, what would that mean for the array of parties arranged for the last night of conference, which concludes tomorrow afternoon with the leader's keynote address?

As they breathed a sigh of relief that tonight's revelries could go ahead, senior figures in the party were worrying that the turmoil on the world's markets could send disillusioned voters back into Labour's arms. One warned: "Our lead in the polls looks impressive, but feels very shallow to me. Cameron has got to do more to look Prime Ministerial." Another insisted, however, that the Tories would be able to re-establish their dominance of the political stage once the crisis blew over.

The point is that no one in Birmingham (or in Downing Street for that matter) knows how the banking chaos will play out in the political arena. All bets are off for the moment, whatever the Tories' recent ascendancy in the opinion polls may have suggested.

THE MOLE: TORY CONFERENCE

FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 30, 2008