Is mankind's highest ideal to live without
incident or adventure? And if so,
when did this begin?

Via David Cameron’s speech in full – Telegraph, a biting attack on the liberal left:

Oh yes, I do understand. Believe me I do understand and I am disgusted by the idea that we should aim for any less for a child from a poor background than a rich one. I have contempt for the notion that we should accept narrower horizons for a black child than a white one. Yes it’s the age-old irony of the liberal left: they practice oppression and call it equality.

I recommend the full speech.

At conference fringe meetings, I spoke against HS2, as I expect to do on Thursday in the Commons, in support of planning reform with a right to refuse and on the subject of how the Big Society idea can help fight poverty. Please see my Twitter feed for more.

This post originally appeared on cobdencentre.org.

Cobden Centre Chairman, Toby Baxendale, and Corporate Affairs Director, Steve Baker, are this week in Salamanca, Spain for the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s Supporters Summit 2009:

One of the great discoveries of the 20th century concerns the origins of economic science in the late middle ages in Spain and Italy. Long before Adam Smith wrote, many scholastics from the 14th through the 17th centuries were writing systematic economic theory.

We heard this morning how the Salamancan friars were liberals, believers in freedom, who advocated:

• Free markets and free enterprise
• Low taxes and a small state
• Free movement of people and products
• The rule of law and the equality of all before the law
• Individual liberty
• Separation of the powers of the state
• Democracy within limits set to protect minorities and individual rights
• Justice: the defence of life, liberty and property

The Salamancans promoted subjective value and argued that an abundance of money makes it worthless. As early as 1544, they argued from legal principle for 100% reserves on demand deposits with depositors paying for safekeeping services.

In other lectures, we learned:

• How recent Nobel Laureate Oliver E. Williamson has opened the way to a capital theory in neoclassical economics which could converge on Austrian-School theory through his “asset specificity”.
• How timely is Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, a systematic treatise which, despite its limitations, could still refute today’s flawed policies.
• Some lessons from a career in modern banking: how bank failures occur and what history has to teach us.
• What Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke could learn from Juan de Mariana’s 17th century treatise De Monetae Mutatione: stop inflating the money supply.

Toby speaks tomorrow, presenting “An Entrepreneur’s Tale: The Meltdown of 2008”.

Via Ireland votes yes to Lisbon treaty | World news | guardian.co.uk :

In a dramatic political U-turn, Ireland has voted decisively in favour of the Lisbon treaty just 16 months after it first rejected the European Union reform plan.

With counting continuing this evening it was expected that 64% of those who voted in Friday’s referendum would have backed the treaty.

But I don’t like this result: best two out of three?

Now expect to hear Eurocrats celebrating the democratic will of the Irish people…

In a related message, David Cameron has sent this to supporters (emphasis mine), explaining how difficult a Conservative win will be to secure:

Our Conference starts in Manchester this weekend. It’s going to be the most vibrant and exciting for years.

Next week, we won’t be playing it safe – instead we will be offering bold plans to deal with the big problems the country faces.

Labour spent their conference talking only to themselves – not the country.

In contrast you will see a Conservative Party united, determined and ready to deliver the bold, tough and radical change Britain needs.

Labour are now the party of unemployment – at this conference we will show that we are the party of new jobs and new opportunities.

To deal with Labour’s Debt Crisis we will be setting out some of the tough decisions that need to be taken and unlike Gordon Brown we won’t duck them.

To give people hope for the future the country needs to change direction, and our Conference will show how we’re ready to make that change.

But there is absolutely no complacency.

Every member of the Conservative Party needs to remember the following: the Conservatives have never won a General Election from a starting point as difficult as we face now.

To win a majority, we must hold every seat we won in 2005 plus an additional 117 constituencies. This would be the biggest number of Conservative gains at a General Election since 1931.

We can do it: but we are going to have to work incredibly hard for every vote, every day between now and polling day. In this election, every vote will count.

This weekend we will hear the results of the referendum in Ireland on the re-named EU Constitution.

I want to make one thing clear: there will be no change in our policy on Europe and no new announcements at the Conference. There will be no change in Conservative policy as long as the Lisbon Treaty is still not in force. The Treaty has still not been ratified by the Czechs and the Poles. The Czech Prime Minister has said that the constitutional challenge before the Czech Constitutional Court could take 3-6 months to resolve.

I have said repeatedly that I want us to have a referendum. If the Treaty is not ratified in all Member States and not in force when the election is held, and if we are elected, then we will hold a referendum on it, we will name the date of the referendum in the election campaign, we will lead the campaign for a ‘No’ vote.

If the Treaty is ratified and in force in all Member States, we have repeatedly said we would not let matters rest there. But we have one policy at a time, and we will set out how we would proceed in those circumstances if, and only if, they happen.

This is going to be a great Conference. I look forward to seeing many of you in Manchester.

Well, I’m off to Manchester tomorrow where I will be chairing three joint fringe debates for the Smith Institute and the Centre for Social Justice on the bank bailouts, housing and insolvency. Looking forward to it.

Today was a thoroughly uplifting day at the Conservative Conference. People are in no doubt that there is much to do to persuade the Country that we can turn things around, and there are plenty of policies to do so.

More here and on ConservativeHome.