Predictable and well-worn rhetoric
This is at the Tory conference but it has been , just as it was in Blackpool in 2007 when he rescued his party from the doldrums with his radical cut in inheritance tax (a policy which is not quite the Tory priority it was in these tough times).
There are shadow cabinet ministers who fear their boy might have gone too far and been too specific with his "Age of Austerity". That is also becoming the media narrative: his gloomy honesty, they say, will frighten away the voters. But this is the same media that until now was attacking Osborne for not being specific enough about where his axe would fall -- and how hard. There are times when politicians should just ignore what the media is saying.
In fact, not being hard or honest enough is still the more telling criticism. The Shadow Chancellor admits that his announced cuts are only a downpayment on what must be done. But even the downpayment is vague in places, depending a lot on our old friends "waste and inefficiency", who are always threatened by politicians in opposition but somehow manage to survive when they get to power.
Tory leaders know you can't get elected on gloom alone. So today David Cameron will use predictable and well-worn rhetoric to say that after we've been through the we'll reach the sunny uplands (the excerpt that's been leaked in advance uses language that's not far from that!).
Cameron/Osborne are quite a formidable double act. It was always clear that Mr Osborne would dole out the gloom in Manchester then Mr Cameron would come along to sprinkle a little sunshine.
There is none of the animosity/rivalry that so poisoned the Blair/Brown relationship and made government dysfunctional. They run the opposition as a co-operative double-act, with their office doors connecting and always open. If they win the election government process will be more Friends than West Wing.
The pressures of power, of course, can muddy the best of friendships but for now they are in harmony. But don't expect to see them much together come the campaign.
The Tories' own market research discovered that the public doesn't mind these two separately but doesn't take to these two public school Oxford chaps when they appear together.
So don't think the absence of a joint photo-call is evidence of a rift. It's just focus-group driven politics!
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