Deficit denyer Dave and the 'Nasty Party'.

Teresa May, the originator of the description of Britain's Tories as the 'nasty party', and Britain's Home Secretary, has probably just skewered Tory millionaire Zak Goldsmith's bid for the London Mayoralty. Her savage attack on immigration (an appeal for future Tory leadership) went down well among the ancient ranks of the average Tory conference audience, but it will sink like a stone in the political life of London, threatening to drown all those associated with her ugly tirade.

Cameron concluded the conference with a speech that initially reminded everybody of Blair. He focused on what he thought were the intractable problems of British society that remained to be dealt with (inequality, poverty, Victorian prisons etc.,) and titled his regime as the 'turn around' decade. He did not talk about the deficit (now considerably larger than when he came to office, 5 years ago.) He did not refer to the frighteningly low levels of productivity in the UK (now 20th in the OECD) or the big-capital investment strike that is causing it. Last May ex Labour leader Milliband was denounced for missing out the deficit in his conference speech - by Cameron and the entire political and media establishment.

Cameron reserved his vitriol for Labour's new leader Corbyn. He did not pull his punches. Following his philosophical ruminations about the great problems of Britain that he would solve, (not including the deficit, investment, the housing bubble, etc., etc.,) he described Corbyn as a 'Britain hater.' Cameron's meditative puff, combined with his violent excoriation of Corbyn, gives pause for thought after the media's generally smirking denigration of Corby's political capacities - that Corbyn's generalities and abstract ideas might have rather frightened Britain' supremo.

One of the great truths of British political life for the last 20 years has been the enormous growth of the feeling among millions of voters that 'they' - the main Westminster based parties - 'are all the same.' Thoughtful and serious studies of this phenomena have drawn out the fact that the electorate are more inspired by politics when they see parties and leaders who identify with a larger vision for society and the future. Corbyn has successfully sketched out a clear and distinct line of advance; which left Cameron with the yawning horror of the absence of any such perspective which described his own office.

The role of the Tory party is to shore up and promote the status quo - particularly when it has to be defended in a crisis, when the people at large may challenge its basis. It is difficult, as Cameron's woolly and implausible meanderings illustrate, for the Tory party to do that in the absence of fighting for an expanding Empire or crushing an Irish or Miner's revolt. Holding on to the City of London, nukes, the wealth of the wealthy and reducing the social wage, do not inspire.

So yet again the British media have missed a trick here and underestimated Corbyn's response to an important trend in British (and European) politics. (Which Cameron felt but could not grasp.)