Henry Mayhew warning back in the 1860s

Above:  I bought this on impulse - I would have bought Labour's Purple Book as well, but it wasn't in stock.

I am working flat out at the moment and am not able to follow the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester.  I can watch the highlights after Newsnight, but nothing during the day.  So I will not get to see Dave's speech tomorrow.

On the whole if there was an election tomorrow I think I would still vote Conservative.  I like "Dave", and the rest of them seem reasonably competent.  Especially I was encouraged by Stephanie Flanders' article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15150162

But just as I like individual Labour MPs but dislike their collective offering, so I tend to like the collective Conservative package but dislike individual Tories, especially the new intake (Louise Mensch, Nick Boles, Elizabeth Truss etc - they all seem so smug and arrogant).

One Tory I do have a lot of respect for is Iain Duncan-Smith.

I was half-watching Andrew Neil's highlights of Iain Duncan-Smith's speech yesterday.  Iain Duncan-Smith was saying that the previous government had allowed the immigration of new workers rather than attempt the (possibly difficult) task of training and motivating the existing unemployed people in Britain.  And at the same time I was reading Henry Mayhew warning back in the 1860s:  "A surplus of hands tends to change the employment of the great majority from a state of constancy and regularity into one of casuality and precariousness."