Conservative strategy has long been to pinch opposition ideas. An economy on the mend can only help them take the credit
Three U-turns in a week. The prime minister is clearly a fan of Benjamin Disraeli, who loved purloining popular opposition policies. One of the bon mots of Queen Victoria's favourite leader was that a sound Conservative government was "Tory men and Whig measures". Another was that the Tories had caught the Whigs bathing, and stolen their clothes.
Part of Cameron's re-election strategy is now to take any Labour or Liberal Democrat clothes that might wow the electorate on 7 May 2015, and wear them first. Payday loan regulation? Done. Plain cigarette packaging? Tick. Energy price cuts in response to Labour's promised price freeze? Under way. More details in Thursday's autumn statement.
A key election message will be: "Why hand power to those unreliable folk when all the attractive plans they propose are already being done by the government?" However much Ed Miliband and Labour shout that they thought it up first, the coalition has the power to push it through – and take the credit.
The enduring principle of Conservatism has never been free trade or protection, intervention or free markets, reaction or social progress, imperialism or decolonisation, more spending or less, all of which have been embraced at one time or another in Tory history. Whether offering frugality or cakes and ale, the Tories' guiding principle has always been keeping the other lot out.
Margaret Thatcher, a free market ideologue, must have been spinning in her casket to hear a Tory chancellor announce a cap on payday loans' interest rates. Such price controls have been anathema to the Tories ever since the Thatcherites won control of the party. Competition, not government, keeps prices low.
We are back to an older Tory tradition. "People who believe in the free market like myself," George Osborne said, covering his bases, "want that free market to be properly regulated". Bring on the oxymorons. There is an election in the offing. They call it pragmatism. You may call it populism. Whichever "p" you prefer, there is going to be more of it over the next year.
The pinching of Labour's lollipops is part of the re-election plan. But it will only work if the chancellor delivers growth. On this second front, George Osborne will have good news on Thursday. His tone will not be triumphalist, because if the electorate believes every threat has been vanquished, it may be more inclined to give a turn to the two Eds. No, the message will be about the coalition's tough decisions leading to steady recovery. The facts are turning the government's way. Britain's economy is on the mend – and not before time.
Osborne's original economic plans went awkwardly awry in part because he did not heed the wise old economists who told him to go more slowly and steadily. Osborne wanted to get the political pain out of the way early in the parliamentary term and, as a result, made that pain worse. The subsequent experience of a flat-lining economy pushed the chancellor to relent. As the OECD calculates in its latest Economic Outlook, there was a pause in the tightening of British tax and spending policy in 2012-13 despite the high deficit. The rhetoric of deficit cutting did not change, but the reality did.
This pause, along with the Funding for Lending scheme and low interest rates and sterling, helped to get demand going to such an extent that the UK is now slated to be one of the fastest growing developed economies.
It would have been hard for Labour, given its previous line of attack, to accuse the chancellor of taking risks in stoking up an unsustainable boom. However, that line of criticism now has more force than the view that the government is being too restrictive. In particular, our political chancellor has succeeded only too well in priming the housing market (and therefore all the consumers' spending that goes with it).
Thankfully, the new governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, began last week to perform a central banker's key function, which is to remove the punchbowl before the party gets rowdy. By ensuring that the incentives to the banks for mortgage lending are curbed, he has reduced the risks of another housing bubble. The issue now is how to boost not demand, but supply.
Economic recovery can be joyless: more work but no reward in terms of pay and spending. Hence the Labour stress on the cost of living. However, household incomes are now increasing, even after inflation, because of the rise in the number of people at work. Second earners are getting back into jobs, and are able to work more hours.
The OECD predict wages will start to rise in real terms for each employee next year. People are more optimistic. They are spending more, and saving less. Business investment is turning. The global environment – even with doubts around the euro area – is looking stronger. Politically, that is Labour's problem and the coalition's chance. From now on, ministers will have the trade winds behind them.