As Conservatives gather in Manchester, Labour's buoyant conference has concentrated minds on how to solve the country's cost of living crisis
Following the death of Margaret Thatcher last April, this year's Conservative party conference was always going to be somewhat preoccupied with the past. A tribute video, entitled Our Maggie, littered with her greatest speech-making hits, will be played in Manchester Central's conference hall, shortly before party chairman Grant Shapps formally opens the four-day celebration of all things Tory.
But while party members will be taken back in time by scenes of a stricken 1970s Britain rescued by an Iron Lady, some Conservatives are looking to the future – and with a deal of concern.
Ed Miliband's Labour party has produced a leaflet something akin to the famous five-point pledge card of 1997. The 2013 document trumpets seven policies: freezing gas and electricity prices until 2017; cutting taxes for 24 million people by reintroducing a 10p rate of tax; expanding free childcare for three- and four-year-olds to 25 hours a week; building 200,000 homes a year by 2020; guaranteeing a job to people unemployed after two years; strengthening the minimum wage; cutting business rates in 2015 and freezing them in 2016.
Up until Labour's Brighton conference, David Cameron could cheerfully mock Miliband for his lack of ideas. The Labour leader's claim in 2010 that he wanted to start, policy-wise, with a blank piece of paper was intended to express an open mind, but has been joyfully seized upon by the prime minister ever since. No more. Miliband has showed his policy hand. Some media commentators have dismissed his pitch as retro throwback stuff. But those on the more progressive wing of the Conservative party see danger in the contrast between Labour's engagement with the problem of increased costs and decreasing wages and some of the terrain trodden by the Tory party over the past year, on Europe, gay marriage and immigration.
It is against this backdrop that the modernisers, the characters who were all the rage within Conservative circles in 2009 and 2010 but who have lost ground in the new era under party strategist Lynton Crosby, are attempting a comeback.
The party, they believe, is at a crossroads. Ryan Shorthouse, director of Bright Blue, and a former adviser to universities minister David Willetts, writes online for this newspaper that Cameron needs to make a choice, and make it quickly. "The real dividing line is between pessimists and optimists," writes Shorthouse. "The first school, pessimism, stems from distress with the modern world and seeks detachment from it. Too many immigrants. Homosexuality and working women are destroying family values. Atrocities in other countries are none of our bloody business.
"It combines the worst of libertarianism – leaving others alone, coldly, dogmatically – and social conservatism – judgmental and sneering. It is ideological, rigid and close-minded. Sure, arrogant, that it is right – and that others will bend to it, eventually. Ukip tempts its adherents. The Conservative party should follow a different school: optimism."
It emerged on Saturday night that, despite fears of a housing market bubble, David Cameron will announce that state-backed mortgages to help increase home ownership will be introduced next week - three months earlier than planned. Cameron told the Sun: "I am impatient to help young people get on the housing ladder." Mortgage guarantees will allow people to buy a newly built home or an existing property worth up to £600,000 with a deposit of just 5%.
Bright Blue, which enjoys the support of a host of ministers, including Francis Maude, culture secretary Maria Miller and planning minister Nick Boles, on its advisory board, suggests three further policies around which it believes the Tory party can build a platform true to Cameron's original vision of his party. Bright Blue calls for a reduction in stamp duty for less expensive homes; the removal of international students from the government's attempt to reduce net immigration to below 100,000 a year by 2015; and a significant rise in the national minimum wage.
Intriguingly, the Observer has learned that Matt Hancock MP, a business minister and former adviser to the chancellor George Osborne, fully backs the need to raise the national minimum wage. There is even talk that some encouraging words may even be offered by Osborne at party conference for a raise or tinkering of the minimum – a move which will be seen by some as an attempt to steal Labour's clothes. The government is looking at whether the minimum wage could vary according to the size of a company. Ed Miliband suggested at his party conference it could vary according to sectors.
Shorthouse disagrees with the contention that the Tory party, in making such a move, would merely be aping Labour policy. It is, he contests, a move at the heart of the progressive vision.
"Conservatism is at its most inspiring and inclusive when it places social mobility at the core of its purpose: a dream of a society where anyone, no matter their background or identity, can achieve a better life if they work hard and act responsibly," he writes. "Macmillan led the Tories to electoral victory by reminding us that Britain's labourers 'never had it so good'; Thatcher captured the aspirational classes with policies such as the 'right to buy'. This is a kinder, more hopeful Conservatism. It should be the future of our party. Young people – energetic, dreamful, and Britain's future – can be attracted to this vision."
What else can be expected this week? The Conservatives say the conference will be "packed with announcements" that will address the needs of "hardworking families". Cameron is expected to announce measures that will help young people get on the housing ladder. The conference theme, they say, will be that the country is "on the right track" and that the Tories should be allowed to finish the job of repairing the economy.
Ministers will contrast what they will say is Labour's shocking return to socialism and state intervention in markets and say Miliband has sent a message abroad that "the UK would not be open for business" under a Labour government.
They may have their work cut out. Labour on Saturday night published polling by YouGov suggesting that its promise to freeze energy prices is proving popular. Taken after the Labour conference, the poll found that 58% of the public think Cameron should implement Labour's energy freeze now – more than double the percentage who disagree. Some 47% of those questioned think Cameron will stand up for the interests of energy companies rather than consumers.
One answer to Miliband's position is being proposed by the energy companies themselves. They are pushing Osborne to take away the cost of implementing measures to cut carbon emissions, and hand it on to the taxpayer. This is seen by some as a way to offer relief from high bills to those on low incomes who pay little or no income tax. Angela Knight, a former Tory minister who is chief executive of the industry lobby group Energy UK, said: "Some companies are saying that those parts of energy bills that directly result from government policy should be elsewhere, in general taxation."
A survey of Tory modernisers – 150 people who are both members of the party and readers of Bright Blue literature – suggests other policies for the Conservatives to seize as their own. Nearly two-thirds (65.3%) want to raise the personal tax allowance further. It will be set at £10,000 in 2014. Similar numbers (52.5%) want to scrap stamp duty for first-time buyers.
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