Opposition leader David Cameron has delivered his speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester.

Cameron told delegates there would be “painful” cuts in public spending, promised to send more troops to Afghanistan and stressed the importance of confronting “Labour’s debt crisis.” He also pledged to modernise the pension system, “break the cycle of welfare dependency” and cut back on bureaucracy to make life easier for entrepreneurs.

Cameron’s speech brings conference season to an end. Leaders of the three main parties — Cameron, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg for the Liberal Democrats — have all laid out their plans for Britain ahead of a general election due by June 2010.

The ‘word clouds’ below have been generated using the complete texts from each of the leaders’ keynote conference speeches, in the order they were given. At first glance there are some striking similarities and fascinating overlaps — but we will leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.

How did you think each of the leaders performed? Who did you find the most convincing? Is David Cameron ready to lead the country?

Keywords from Nick Clegg’s speech:

Keywords from Gordon Brown’s speech:

Keywords from David Cameron’s speech:

Three big speeches have been delivered at the Conservative Party conference so far — by party leader David Cameron, the mayor of London and national bumbler, Boris Johnson, and the party’s spokesman on the economy, George Osborne.

What do all three men have in common apart from their membership of the Conservative Party? They were all educated at elite public schools (Johnson and Cameron at Eton and Osborne at St Paul’s) and all went to Oxford, where they were members of the same dining and social set, the secretive and selective Bullingdon Club.

They have all tried to play down their wealth and upbringing — Johnson has even made an appearance on Britain’s favourite soap opera EastEnders — but there is no erasing the fact that Osborne is an Irish baronet, Cameron is a direct descendant of King William IV and Johnson also has a sprinkling of royal ancestry, even if he has described himself as a “one-man melting pot”.

Opponents have pointed to the wealth and clique of the Conservative leadership to suggest the party is out of touch with ordinary, working-class Britain and unfit to govern. What do you think? Does class really matter when it comes to running the country?

The Conservatives will get a chance to show they are ready for office at their annual conference in Manchester. After 12 years in opposition, the party could be on the verge of returning to power in an election due by next June.

Conservative leader David Cameron has said they will set out plans this week for reducing the country’s gaping budget deficit and unveil a “massive” programme to cut unemployment.

Our team of reporters will be looking for details of what a Conservative government would hold in store and aim to give a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the conference. Comments are open so please share your thoughts and opinions!

The Sun trumpeted “It’s the Sun Wot Won It” after the Conservatives won the 1992 general election following the newspaper’s polling day headline “If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights”.

Five years later, Britain’s top-selling daily newspaper switched sides and backed Tony Blair and Labour at the next general election, remaining loyal to the centre-left party at the 2001 and 2005 elections.

But the tabloid has now flipped its allegiances and plans to support the Tories and David Cameron proclaiming on its front page on Wednesday that “Labour’s Lost it”.

“The Sun believes — and prays — that the Conservative leadership can put the great back into Great Britain,” wrote the paper, dedicating five pages to explain its decision, even moving its traditional page-three topless girl back to page seven.

With Brown even lagging the Liberal Democrats in the latest opinion polls, the Sun’s thumbs-down was another kick in the teeth for the beleaguered Prime Minister, just a day after he delivered a keynote speech to the Labour Party conference.

In a round of interviews on Wednesday, Brown put a brave face on the Sun’s thumbs-down, insisting: “The British people will decide the election, not a newspaper”.

The Sun is read by nearly three million people, but in an age where people increasingly get their news from rolling television news programmes and the Internet, is the tabloid’s decision a fatal blow for Gordon Brown’s political chances in next year’s general election?

After more than a decade of railing against a Labour government that they feel has betrayed their shared socialist roots, British trade unions are now starting to fear what a future with a Conservative government will be like.

“They’re going to come after us like rabid dogs,” said Brian Caton, general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association said — dubbing the Conservatives “the enemy”.

Activists may be disenchanted by a Labour government that they believe has pursued a pro-business agenda and failed to roll back anti-union legislation, but that is suddenly starting to look a whole lot better than a Conservative administration.

“God help us,” said John Thompson, President of UCATT, the construction workers’ union. “We’ll have never seen anything like it if this mob do get in.”

And a fear of more restrictive regulation and big public spending cuts is not encouraging the movement to offer an olive branch to the centre-right Conservatives, who are well ahead of Labour in opinion polls with an election due by mid-2010.

At a fringe meeting at the Trades Union Congress conference, GMB union chief Paul Kenny called Conservative leader David Cameron, pictured, a “clown”.

Even the most powerful of the union bosses are not afraid to admit that a Conservative government looks likely.

“You’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to see that Labour is in a great deal of trouble,” said Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Britain’s biggest union Unite.

But no matter how bleak the future looks for the unions, they are not yet resigned to a Conservative future and are rolling up their sleeves for the fight.

“We’ve always fought for everything we’ve got,” said Kenny. “A poor Labour government is a hell of a lot better than a poor Tory (Conservative) government”.

The National Health Service (NHS) has endured a barrage of criticism from opponents of Barack Obama’s plans to push through a healthcare bill that would rein in costs, place constraints on insurance companies and expand health cover to 46 million uninsured Americans.

Stateside critics of the U.S. President’s plans — including former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin — have branded the NHS “evil and Orwellian” and said it allowed “death panels” to decide levels of care for the elderly. They see it as an overly bureaucratic, “socialised” system of healthcare and the proposals have prompted angry scenes at town halls across America.

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan stirred up further controversy by describing the NHS on a U.S. TV show as a “60 year mistake” and as a service he “wouldn’t wish on anybody”.

Political leaders in the UK have been united in their defence of the NHS following the onslaught. Gordon Brown used micro-blogging site Twitter to voice his support, saying: “The NHS often makes the difference between pain and comfort, despair and hope, life and death. Thanks for always being there.”

A campaign supporting the health service on Twitter, called welovetheNHS, has received tens of thousands of messages.

David Cameron, leader of the Conservatives, was quick to distance himself and his party from Hannan’s remarks. “Just look at all the support which the NHS has received on Twitter over the last couple of days. It is a reminder — if one were needed — of how proud we in Britain are of the NHS,” he said in a statement.

What do you think of the National Health Service? Do you agree with our country’s politicians that it is a system we should be proud of? What are your views on healthcare in the U.S?

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is gearing up for his holidays, which he is expected to take mainly in his Kircaldy constituency and the Lake District.

Conservative leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg are travelling overseas for their summer breaks.

Parliament is in recess from July 21 to October 12, but Brown says he and most MPs will not use the long break as “an extended vacation,” reports the Guardian.

“The idea that people are taking 82 days holiday is wrong. I am having a few days holiday, and I am getting on with the job,” he said.

How much holiday time should MPs get?

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Gordon Brown setting out a plan to overhaul MPs’ unpopular allowances and announcing it on YouTube too.

A week later the plan has unravelled in the face of opposition protest and internal Labour party misgivings. The upshot is more bad press and the feeling that Brown’s authority has been further undermined.

Throw in a budget in which the government has been forced to admit to the worst economic performance since World War Two and it has been a few days to forget for Brown.

Commentators are increasingly writing about the Conservatives as a government-in-waiting, a focus that carries risks because it exposes their policies plans to closer scrutiny.

His visit to Pakistan on Monday also brought reports of a snub after he appeared at a press conference with  Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani rather than President Asif Ali Zardari.  

So is the game up for Gordon? Well, it certainly is hard to see how Labour can overhaul their deficit in the polls. But Brown was being written off in 2008, with rumours of his impending removal, but  emerged stronger when the credit crisis hit.

It’s been a bad week for Brown, but a year in politics is an eternity.

(UPDATED Dec 18 - This post is now closed for questions)

Conservative Party leader David Cameron will be speaking on the economy and the credit crunch at Thomson Reuters' Canary Wharf office on Monday, followed by a question and answer session.

The Tory leader has argued that two main problems face Britain at present – a recession coupled with a record level of government debt, and that the government is trying to tackle one while ignoring the other.

"Every week this government is in power the mortgaging of the future gets greater. Every week the debt gets larger. Every week the burdens on our children mount up higher,” Cameron has said. He has accused Gordon Brown of "economic crimes" saying the Prime Minister “has brought this country to the brink of bankruptcy and the worst recession in the G7."

Here is your chance to put your questions to the man credited with making the Conservative Party electable again. We will be putting questions from our Web readers to Cameron at the event.

For full coverage of the event, including a live Web cast from 1000 GMT on Monday, see our David Cameron Newsmaker page.

Readers who use the Twitter micro-blogging service can also use the tag #askDC and we will monitor all the responses.

A ComRes/Independent poll this week says Gordon Brown has staged a stunning political recovery and that the Labour party is now just one point behind David Cameron and the Conservatives.

Yet only four days ago an ICM/Guardian survey said Conservative popularity had returned to its summer peak with 45 percent of voter support and a lead of 15 points.

Mike Smithson at Politicalbetting has published tables to show that ICM’s polls have been more consistent over the past year, with Comres swinging from giving the Tories a massive 22 point lead in July to its latest wafer-thin difference.

But it is not only these two polling companies who are producing contrasting results. In recent days we have also had a similar split between an 11-point Tory lead from Ipsos-Mori in the Observer and a mere 4 point Conservative advantage from YouGov in the Telegraph.

Which poll are we to believe? Even a seasoned commentator such as Strathclyde University Politics Professor John Curtice says he has no simple explanation.

He says the key events that shifted voter intentions back towards Brown were the Labour Party’s autumn UK conference and the government’s victory in the Glenrothes by-election, with last week’s Pre-Budget Report having less of an effect.

“Until the ComRes poll came out it looked as if the post-Glenrothes bounce was beginning to wane,” he told me.

“The Pre-Budget Report didn’t seem to be having much of an impact, but maybe rather than waning it’s still holding on. We’ll have to wait for the next poll.”