The Conservative Party’s few days in Manchester – a city again Tory-free since May 2011 – seemed to be a party trying it’s best not to look like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

Relatively trouble free for the most part, yet despite being in Government the Tories’ have control over neither the mood music nor the day-to-day agenda. Not that this is too significant for a party that has set it’s course for the long haul. Whatever happens now or in the various mid-term elections will be of no import should Mr Cameron achieve his objective of an overall Conservative majority in 2015.

The conventional wisdom says that the condition of the economy will be the key factor and elections are lost by Governments rather than won by Oppositions. Plan A, the one where the UK’s debt is drastically reduced then gradually recovers from its prolonged economic woes in time for the election, looks increasingly fanciful. The world economy seems unlikely to co-operate with Conservative strategists, but while a depressed economy makes life more difficult for the Government it doesn’t make it impossible as John Major’s administration demonstrated in 1992. While the economy may be the principal concern, fitness to govern will be the test of which party is best suited to manage the mess. The central task of the Labour opposition is to expose the incompetence of the Conservative-led administration.

This administration is providing opportunities a plenty. Mr Cameron is no great shakes when it comes to understanding the economy. The ‘credit card’ re-write was the sort of error that would have cost an ‘A’ level student a decent grade. It won’t be the last time the Prime Minister’s lack of economic grounding becomes an issue. However Mr Cameron is nothing if not light on his feet. During his tenure as Tory leader he has consistently followed the mantra ‘when you screw up apologise and fast’. Whatever Mr Cameron lacks in basic economic knowledge he makes up for with his ability to side-step the bullets.

Not so his lieutenants. The vacuous Theresa May and the ludicrous Eric Pickles produced conference ‘interventions’ that were at best laughable. It was a week of taking aim at easy targets to deflect attention. What it lacked in substance, however, it made up for in pomposity. Is there anything more preening and pompous than William ‘pop boy’ Hague strutting his diplomatic stuff? The Defence Secretary Liam Fox, perhaps?

Fitting then that the Conservative Conference petered out into a good old-fashioned incidence of Tory Sleaze, allegedly. No matter what Dr Fox does to spin this one it doesn’t look likely that the papers and the opposition will let go.

But what is there really to make such a fuss about? The goings on with Dr Fox’s longstanding ‘friend’ Mr Werritty may look a little odd, but let’s be serious, eh. Politicians in Government take their ‘friends’ along to meetings all the time, don’t they? All sorts of people print business cards claiming to be something they are not every day of the week, don’t they? All sorts of people who don’t actually work for MPs use the House of Commons portcullis logo on their personal cards all of time, don’t they? All sorts of people risk embarrassing their close friends by claiming to work for them when they don’t all the time, don’t they? MPs, especially those who over claim more than £22,000 in mortgage payments and then pay it back under protest, loan out their taxpayer funded offices to all sorts of organisations all the time, don’t they? And it would never occur to a Defence Minister that people they take along to meetings require a security clearance – why on earth would it? It can’t be anything that sensitive – it’s only the Ministry of Defence and it isn’t like there’s a war on or anything, is there? So what is all the fuss about?

But despite the obvious normality of all this I find myself asking more naïve and, of course hypothetical, questions. Suppose you tag along with your ‘friend’ to a meeting with the President of a nation of some 20 million souls for reasons not entirely clear, how exactly are you introduced? You travel to various parts of the world at the same time as your ‘friend’ and could well meet people of influence and seniority, how exactly are you introduced then? Do you hand round those business cards, or not? And if one is just turning up in these places at one’s own expense and without being paid to do so, what precisely are you getting out of these meetings?

Nothing strange about any of that. I’m sure people do it all the time.

How this ends depends on what’s more important to Mr Cameron – keeping his Government looking reasonably ship shape or keeping a political rival urinating from inside the tent. My guess is that If Dr Fox was an ally he would already be out.