I've just watched the Conservative conference 'Hot Topic Debate: global companies are a force for good'.

I thought initially that the idea of George Moonbat being given a platform by the Conservative Party was bizarre. But having heard the parade of 'Against' speakers - members of the party, amazingly - I can see now that he has found his natural home. Attacks on the market, attacks on multinationals, attacks on business, attacks on the people involved in business: the audience speakers sounded as if they had come straight from the Green Party.

When Richard North, speaking in favour of business (yes, they actually felt the need to have such a speaker!) put forward some of the facts on generic HIV drugs, the chairman simply swatted him away as if the facts shouldn't be allowed to impede an anti-business rant. The Chairman! At a Conservative Party conference!

Truly amazing. On this evidence, the only feasible choice for a vote in favour of a pro-business party is a vote for Labour. [I should rephrase that. As a friend points out to me, business is a lobby just like any other. What I should have written is: 'the most feasible choice for a vote in favour of a pro-market party is a vote for Labour.' But that seems so self-evidently wrong that I resisted writing it. It has taken the Conservative conference for me to think it might actually be right.]

And if the early spin on this afternoon's Cameron speech is right, the decision is even easier. At the very time when spending as much money as possible on the NHS is being shown not to work, and the polls say the public is now willing to consider alternatives, Dave is making a defence of the NHS the cornerstone of his party's purpose.

Yes, the Tories need to make sure that their brand is no longer tarnished, but turning the party into a social democrat mush – on welfare (ruling out the stick and promising only the carrot), on health (pledging to match Labour’s wasteful spending), on taxes (refusing to talk about cutting the level of taxes, now higher than in Germany) – isn’t the answer.

If Dave's strategy is to look so much like the real thing - Labour - that voters can happily vote for a new set of faces to implement the same old same old social democrat mush - New New Labour - then we all might as well emigrate.