A conference speech is always a team effort, Osborne’s speech had input from Rupert Harrison, Poppy Mitchell-Rose and Ramesh Chhabra. Read it in full here and judge for yourself.  The end result was so polished it read like a Times leader. Perhaps with good reason…

A close textual analysis of Osborne’s speech gives Guido the distinct impression that the hand of The Times’ Danny Finkelstein can be detected. A usually reliable source says Fink was unofficially on the team helping finalise the speech back in Osborne’s hotel room. Ironically a couple of years ago it was Fink who spotted that Gordon Brown was recycling lines crafted by Stan Greenberg for American political audiences to Labour conference.  Guido is still trying to figure out what the Treasury-backed small business bond plan is all about.