LIVE! Cameron speaks

2:09 PM: Oh, Jesus wept, what a terrible campaign tune! Something by Coldplay isn't it? Why do politicians think that this is a good idea? Everyone's watching a video at the moment that looks, from the poor vantage point given to viewers at home, to be entitled "The Tory Party Conference on Crack: A Montage"

2:10 PM: The music's changed but we still can't really see what's going on. Suitably serious music indicating we're probably seeing something relating to Broken Britain.

2:11 PM: Members of the Shadow Cabinet in unison: "What the bally hell's going on? Is this a tune from the Hit Parade? My word, William! The pictures! They're moving!"

2:13 PM: Here he comes...

2:14 PM: Dave enters to suitably bracing music. There's his shiny hair! His smile! His suitable fruity wife! A member of the audience is cheering! Isn't everying simply spiffing!

2:16 PM The theme is "Back to the Future." Dave reminds us of his Conference triumph two years ago, how he's back now and hopes to hell that the British public have forgotten everything that has happened in between.

2:17 PM: heh. "Just a few notes. Not much but it will be me." Translation: My speechwriter has been sent down the Jobcentre.

2:18 PM: Dave was around at the time of the Berlin Wall? Shurely he was just a glint in Sir Horace Humphrington Boffington Montmorency III's eye at that stage?

2:18 PM: "Just one in ten of our MPs are women, but loads of our candidates are women. They are all blonde, posh, fruity and my mates. Hurrah for democracy!"

2:21 PM: "We're not going to be lurching to the left, we're not going to be lurching to the right, we're just going to head straight on over the cliff!"

2:22 PM: Took him five minutes to get onto the subject of the Gord, and administers a cheeky slap over Shrumgate.

2:23 PM: An appeal to the anti-European crowd about that damn legislation that stops us sending those funny foreign people back. Rapturous applause.

2:25 PM: Dave pitches against the encroachment of the state - the need for more responsibility amidst the public services.

2:27 PM: Dave actually looks like he knows what Facebook is, which is more than can be said for the audience.

2:28 PM: There's a Facebook group called "David Cameron is a hottie?" P'rhaps there are people out there who like the sort of man who looks as if his family tree doesn't have quite as many branches on it as is usual.

2:30 PM: Easy clap that one: referendum on the EU Treaty. Frankly, it will be difficult for the comrades to argue against much of what he's saying with all the stuff that's come out of Number 10 recently about citizens' juries and Partnerships in Politics or whatever the latest idea is.

2:31 PM: He wants more mayors over the UK because it leads to better public services. Yes. The bloke dressed as a monkey in Hartlepool won those votes because of the public's concern over wheelie bin provision. Is this a move to lure Red Ken into the Tory fold?

2:34 PM: Solid speech this one: reducing regulation, freeing the business community from red tape and sharing the proceeds of growth amongst the business community. Unfortunately he's a bit woolly on quite how the "modern Conservative change" of forcing businesses to be more cuddly and responsible is to be done.

2:35 PM: Too many things aren't right in education? What? After that nice Mr Jamie Oliver helpfully gave us all the answers on food, life the universe, and everything, the other year? Say it ain't so, Dave! Of course, the elephant in the room on the education issue are the words "grammar" and "school" in any sort of order.

2:38 PM: "Opening up the state monopoly on education." This means McDonalds sponsoring schools, right? If you have three Pepsis and drink one, how much more refreshed are you? You, the redhead in the Chicago school system? – Pepsi? – Partial credit!

2:39 PM: "Under the Conservatives there will be fewer comphrensive school bozos in Oxbridge. They'll be doing one of those GNVQ things. You know, like plumbers do. Great career, plumbing. So I've heard."

2:41 PM: Oh Christ, here comes the "personal experiences" again. Cameron accosting half-cut exam students in corridors of random schools? Whatever. The question is, could it be the star of the Labour Conference - the much spoken about "Little Max"? What a coup that would be for the Tories.

2:43 PM: Bet there are some grim faces in the Brown bunker (it's the bit in The Big Tent we're not allowed into). Cameron's rather successfully presented the Tories as the party of affordable housing, aspiration, and safe pensions.

2:45 PM: Westmonster assumes somebody had told Osborne previously that he was in charge of setting up a lifeboat fund for pensions - presumably to the tune of billions? He looks like he's just swallowed his Bullingdon Club cufflinks.

2:47 PM: 600,000 more people in hard poverty and we deal with it by not administering help through the state, but rather refusing handouts to those who refuse to work and get the charities to run the welfare state because we can pay them less... er... because they have the expertise needed.

2:51 PM: If David wants everybody to get married, maybe he can develop a policy that encompasses an £18k handout to each couple who might conceivably tie the knot to cover the cost a ridiculously expensive day that involves prancing around in an over-priced dress and munching cake?

2:56 PM: Lots of stuff about the family in this speech - both Dave's and everyone else's. It's odd hearing Cameron praise the NHS, innit? Anyway, he's drawing attention to the apparent over-centralisation of control in Whitehall. And we also learn that Dave's been on a protest march. Spiffing larks, what what!

2:57 PM: Quite interested in how this "personalisation of the NHS" will work. ah. People can choose to go private. All is explained.

2:58 PM: "I believe community hospitals are our future... teach them well and let them lead the way."

3:00 PM: Jeez, Westmonster is concerned. It's quite a good speech, innit?

3:01 PM: Blimey! Dave put on those Bambi eyes that he does so well and asked to be trusted with public services. Anyone in Number 10 reading: get Brown to work on the Bambi eyes! No, wait, maybe... not so much.

3:04 PM: We seem to be wrapping up with the terrorist threat. "We must never put party before country." What? He's going into The Big Tent as well? Oh, he's not. An enormous clap for the cattleprod-to-backside interface that was engaged by the opposition whips to get MPs through the lobbies in order to vote for Trident. It's like a different world.

3:05 PM: Just accused Brown of breaking the Military Covenant to huge applause. This speech augurs ill for the comrades.

3:06 PM: The composition of the Tory Party is an interesting one - the bit he just did on better leave for soldiers earned him a "hear, hear" and he's elaborating quite fulsomely on the aspiration of soliders families.

3:07 PM: Er... is there any reason why BBC Parliament is showing Westmonster a picture of a donkey sniffing a camera instead of Cameron? James Purnell? You behind this?

3:14 PM: A redefinitiion of the "old politics" seems to be one of the main issues here. A move away from, say, overshadowing a shadow leader's speech by buggering off to Iraq to announce our boys will be home for Christmas?

3:12 PM: Dave outlines seeming contradictions in the Government's justice and civil liberties policy and he's just promised to scrap ID cards, replace the Human Rights Act and ban Hisb ut-Tahrir.

3:17 PM: Heh. There was a palpable sigh of disappointment when Dave announced he wouldn't be reintroducing National Service.

3:19 PM: He really is winding up now and is administering a lethal dose of understanding in the direction of the comrades' policies.

3:21 PM: "The best thing about growing up as an aristocrat was not the vast amounts of wealth, servants, ponies, a school that costs more per annum than some people make in a lifetime, the girls, fine wines, cigars, dancing girls, and career laid out for you. No, it was the warmth."

3:22 PM: Jimmy Cliff's "You Can Get It If You Really Want" as the Conservatives' election campaign song. You heard it here first.

3:23 PM: Excellent closing line: "call that election - Britain will win." Might look a tad silly in retrospect if the Tories don't pull it off, but certainly the best speech out of the boys in blue for a good number of years.