Reaction Radio

Rolling coverage from Manchester as the Tories set out their policies to reform the economy

11.40am: A 15-year-old Tory called Annabel gets called and she prefaces her question with a mini-speech. It’s not a William Hague moment, but Annabel uses her moment in the spotlight to make a point about debt.

Gordon Brown, I want an apology for the debt burden you have passed on to my generation.

11.39am: Phillip Hammond has finished. There’s now a Q&A session with the Treasury team.

11.32am: This is a nice phrase. Hammond says he would end the system of “use it or lose it” budgets that require Whitehall departments to spend money before the end of the financial year or return it to the Treasury.

11.28am: Hammond criticises Brown for saying the Tories would cut spending “for fun”. That’s a “shameful lie”, Hammond says.

Whoever wins the election will have to cut spending. But the Tories would be able to do so in a way that protects public services because they are committed to public sector reform.

11.25am: Back to Phillip Hammond. He’s having a go at Gordon Brown now for refusing to accept the need for spending cuts. All familiar stuff …

11.19am: Phillip Hammond says “poll after poll” shows that Cameron and Osborne, not Brown and Darling, are the team trusted by the voters to sort out the economy.

Up to a point, Phillip. The Times has got some polling from Populus today that shows that, when people are asked whether they would trust Cameron or Brown more to cut spending in a sensible way, Cameron wins. But when they are asked whether they trust the Tories or Labour more, Labour wins.

Populus split the sample of interviewees into two: asking one half whether a Tory or a Labour Government would be more likely to make various spending cuts, and then asking the other half whether Mr Cameron or Gordon Brown would be more likely to make the cuts. On each question, Mr Cameron is ahead of his own party by between 4 and 11 points, while Mr Brown is on level pegging with or slightly behind his own party. This can make a big difference. For example, while Labour is ahead of the Tories on making cuts that protect frontline public services, by 42 to 37 per cent, Mr Cameron is ahead of Mr Brown by 45 to 42 per cent on the same question.

Similarly, Labour is ahead of the Tories by 46 to 36 per cent on “spreading the burden of cuts fairly, so that the best-off bear their share too”, but Mr Cameron is just ahead of Mr Brown, 43 to 42 per cent, on the same point.

11.17am: The economy debate is starting. Members of the Tory Treasury team have come onto the stage and they are now all sitting on the platform on comfy chairs, while Phillip Hammond opens the session. George Osborne is absent. He’s coming on later.

11.14am: Benedict Brogan at the Telegraph applauds the Cameron plan.

It is precisely this kind of example of how savings can be found or money raised that we have been pressing Mr Osborne to provide. I’m told we will get several more, all of which will give something other than ID cards to talk about. At last.

11.08am: Will Straw at Left Foot Forward has identified one consequence of the Tory pension plan and he has posted a fascinating piece about it on his website. He says that, because average life expectancy varies widely in different parts of the country, the Tory plan would have a disproportionate impact in places like Glasgow.

Life expectancy at birth in UK cities ranges from 70.8 years in Glasgow City to 83.7 years in Kensington and Chelsea. The results show that Conservative plans to raise the pensionable age to 66 from 2016 will have a different impact on retirement plans in different parts of the country …

In the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the average worker will lose 5.3 per cent of their retired life. This compares to 17.4 per cent in Glasgow City. In David Cameron’s constituency of Witney, in West Oxfordshire, people will lose 6.8 per cent of their retired life.

10.57am: Does anyone know what the voters will make of the Tory pension plan? Cameron was asked in his Today programme interview this morning whether the party had tested it with focus groups. Cameron said that he had not attended any focus groups himself, but he seemed to concede that the party had done some research on this. But what did it say? Cameron didn’t tell us. “When it comes to reducing public spending, there aren’t any popular options,” was all he said.

If you know of any opinion polling that has covered this issue, please let me know.

10.53am: Phillip Hammond, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, will be speaking before Osborne. I see that he’s already been on GMTV today, saying the Tories would “strain every sinew” to avoid cuts in public services.

10.45am: This is a big day for the Conservatives. All parties believe that the economy will be the key battleground at the election and today the Tories are setting out some of their spending plans. We’ve already had a landmark announcement on pensions, but we’re expecting more. The economy debate starts at 11.15am and George Osborne speaks before lunch. I’ll be blogging the speeches, the reaction to what’s being said and what we hear about it on the conference fringe. The debate picks up again on the conference floor this afternoon and I’ll carry on until Ken Clarke winds it up, at around 3pm

Join us for all the big announcements, including speeches from Kenneth Clarke, the shadow business secretary, and George Osborne, the shadow chancellor

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