The closing ceremony of the Tory Party Conference is upon us and prime minister David Cameron has taken to the stage to deliver his speech.
He has not shied away from bad news, admitting that cuts won鈥檛 be easy but are entirely necessary. Nothing new there.
An entire section of the speech was dedicated to early achievements and a focus on safeguarding the NHS budget. But no mention of construction, property, housing, school building or public sector project cuts.
He had a brief line on free schools but nothing that clarified any of the concerns raised by critics.
He gave a ringing endorsement for Eric Pickles 鈥渢he big man on the side of the people鈥� and the man, according to the prime minister, responsible for giving 鈥渕ore freedom to local councils, to keep more of the money when they attract business to their area, to finance big new infrastructure projects.鈥�
Cameron did use his speech to pledge support for other infrastructure projects, and names the high-speed rail link.
If it were true that what the industry doesn鈥檛 know won鈥檛 hurt it, there would be little need to worry too much about what David Cameron didn鈥檛 say today. But there is a fear that what was left out was left out for a reason and we won鈥檛 start know the full extent of the bad news it is until 20 October.
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