David Cameron: Top Ten Speech Questioned Answered (We Knew The Tie Would Be Purple)

David Cameron: Top Ten Speech Questioned Answered (We Knew The Tie Would Be Purple)

The first part of David Cameron's speech to the Conservative Party conference was something of a tick-box affair, as he reeled off a list of achievements

However we had our own list, a Top Ten things to look and listen out for as the prime minister took to the stage. Here are the answers.

1. Ed Miliband parked Labour's tanks on the Tory lawn last week by appropriating the term One Nation - he said it 46 times. How many times will Cameron say it?

ANSWER: Cameron said "One Nation" just once, but he did throw in a "One Notion" as part of a joke about Labour's obsession, in his view, with borrowing money.

2. The economy is where the real battle is. Will Cameron go after Ed Balls personally like Nick Clegg did? The shadow chancellor gets under the prime minister's skin, will he find it too hard to resist a dig even though Balls loves it?

ANSWER: Cameron managed to restrain himself from kicking Balls. Each time he said "Ed", we were hopeful - but it always ended "Miliband".

3. George Osborne did not say the word "growth" in his speech. Will Cameron?

ANSWER: He did, five times. He also said "grow" twice and "growing" once.

4. What about those pesky Lib Dems? While the internal-coalition relationship was all most Lib Dems spoke about at their conference in Brighton, the Conservatives have been ignoring their yellow friends. Will Cameron be nice enough, or nasty enough, to mention Nick Clegg and his colleagues?

ANSWER: Just one mention of the Lib Dems. In a section branding the Conservatives as the party of the NHS. He did not say the word "coalition" at all.

5. Boris. Will he mention Boris? And If he does will it be in the form of a 'friendly' jibe that is both warm, but also a "hands off my job" put down.

ANSWER: The mayor was dubbed the "the zinger on the zip-wire" by the prime minister. So a friendly joke, but a reminder that Boris is a bit of a joke.

6. How hard will Cameron go after benefit cheats? Welfare reform has been a big theme of the conference and he and his party clearly believes a crackdown on welfare is popular with the voters.

ANSWER: The prime minister devoted a whole section to welfare, and a large part of the overall theme was the Tory party's commitment to making work pay.

7.What colour tie does he wear? Will it be one of his favourite tory blue numbers, or will it be purple - which seems to be the tie colour of choice for politicians these days. This is important.

ANSWER: IT WAS PURPLE. KNEW IT.

8.Will he use notes? Ed Miliband wowed the crowd in Manchester by speaking without a script, just has Cameron has done in the past. Will trying to recreate that moment look too much like he is directly competing with Miliband?

ANSWER: Cameron read from an autocue. Not using notes is so 2005.

9. Wil he pick out 'normal' people to illustrate his points? There is a tendency among politicians to tell stories about 'real people' they have met that taught them the importance of +insert government policy here+.

ANSWER: "A guy called Alastair Lukies". Apparently he and his business partner saw a world with almost 6 billion mobile phones and just 2 billion bank accounts.

10. Plebs. Will Cameron tackle the Andrew Mitchell problem head on by making a joke about his chief whip's alleged "pleb" outburst at the Downing Street police. Or will he ignore it.

ANSWER: No mention of plebs. No mention of Mitchell. No mention of the police.

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