The Tory Party Conference ended on a surprising high, says Leo McKinstry

The cynical aristocrat Arthur Balfour, Prime Minister in the early Edwardian age and the longest-serving Cabinet minister of all time, was grandly dismissive of party opinion. "I'd rather take advice from my valet than the Conservative conference," he once said. But no modern Tory leader could dare to be so disdainful of the annual gatherings.