Running a conference session on the economy on a day when a Bank has been nationalised made this morning perhaps the most important session of our week in Birmingham.

Running a conference session on the economy on day when a Bank has been nationalised made this morning perhaps the most important session of our week.

Delegates at this conference are enterprising businesspeople. So when George Osborne said that under a Conservative government, Britain will live within its means, delegates knew that he was talking their language.

Of course they cheered the ambition of lower taxes by the end of a Conservative government, and they applauded the promise of simpler taxes and a return to lower taxes on business. But the greatest respect came for Osborne's determination to deliver sound economics and an end to Brownite boom and bust.