The Tories' Bold Welfare Overhaul

At their party conference, the Tories unveiled plans to rewrite Britain's benefits system. Now they face the tough task of implementing these policies.

Click here for all of David Frum’s blogposts from the 2010 Conservative Party conference.

Tim Montgomerie of Conservative Home offers an insider's analysis of the Conservative conference here.

First 2 of his 10 point assessment:

(1) The party of the working poor: In a move as significant as Margaret Thatcher's decision to sell council homes to their tenants, Iain Duncan Smith announced a seven year programme that will simplify the benefits system and ensure that every person who takes work is better off. Sat alongside the Coalition's commitment to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000* it is a proud moment for our party. While Gordon Brown extended dependence up the income scale - sometimes it seemed for nakedly political purposes - David Cameron is leading a government that is helping people to be more independent of the state. As he said in his speech yesterday: "Let us support the real routes out of poverty: a strong family; a good education; a job."

(2) The week that universality ended: The decision to stop higher rate taxpayers receiving child benefit is unlikely to be the last universal benefit that George Osborne will touch. The deficit, said Iain Duncan Smith, made it "bonkers" for people earning £50,000 to be receiving lots of benefits. Ed Miliband has vowed to defend universal benefits and sees such a posture as a way of winning support throughout middle Britain.