Boris Johnson has moved to reassert his ambitions for Downing Street as he handed the London baton to Zac Goldsmith and set out stark differences with Theresa May.
The London mayor has been widely seen as falling behind in the race to replace David Cameron as Tory leader before the next election.
But Mr Johnson delighted the Tory faithful in Manchester by claiming his agenda in the capital was already being rolled out around the country – quipping the only crime going up in London was the theft of policy from City Hall.
Mr Johnson’s appearance at the podium came just minutes after Home Secretary Mrs May delivered a hard-hitting address on immigration and asylum which was greeted with polite applause by activists.
The Mayor delivered a call for social mobility, urging caution as the Government reforms welfare including by slashing tax credits.
But he still cracked a series of jokes by poking fun at Jeremy Corbyn, the “crusty” protesters outside the Manchester conference centre – and by returning to his frequent metaphor of a rugby ball breaking free from the scrum offering him a run at Downing Street.
Mr Johnson was introduced to the conference stage by Mr Goldsmith, who won the Tory nomination for May’s City Hall contest ahead of the conference.
And laying out his pitch for leadership of his party, Mr Johnson said: “I am immensely proud of what has been achieved in the last seven and a half years under a Tory mayoralty.
“We began with a financial crisis that many people said would knock London off its perch as the world’s financial capital and we come to the final furlongs with London the number one capital for banking, for bioscience, for media, for culture, for theatre.”
Mr Johnson cited “massive” Tube upgrades, the successful Olympics and subsequent regeneration of Stratford, rebuilding work around the capital and boosts to the environment.
He added: “And in spite of this frenzy of activity we done the Tory thing – we have cut council tax by 27% and it is wonderful now to see the London agenda being rolled out across the country.”
Mr Johnson said the Tories could justify its support for wealth creators but only if they ensured taxes were paid properly and all of society could make progress.
He said: “Shared language, shared cultural assumptions, shared confidence in our political institutions – these are the ties that unite our society and yet they are not powerful enough on their own.
“If the economic gap between us is allowed to grow too big and, even though I am still just about the only politician to speak out in favour of bankers, I say we one nation Tories cannot ignore the gulf in pay packets that yawns wider year by year.”
Mr Johnson said the pay gap between top executives and their average staff had grown from 25 times higher to 130 times more – with some far higher still.
Mr Johnson praised supermarket chain Lidl for promising to pay all its employees the London living wage.
And he added: “I believe that people will accept this, but only on certain conditions. Only if they feel that this dynamic, entrepreneurial, high-reward capitalist system is actually helping to take everyone forward.”
In a warning to the Tory leadership, he added: “We must ensure that as we reform welfare and we cut taxes that we protect the hardest working and lowest paid.
“The retail staff, the cleaners, who get up in the small hours or work through the night because they have dreams for what their families can achieve. The people without whom the London economy would simply collapse. The aspiring, striving, working people that Labour is leaving behind.”
Mr Johnson said Tory policies on housing, transport and education created opportunity, adding: “Take those policies together with our natural instincts to cut taxes, cut red tape, to help business and enterprise and you can see why there has been a jobs boom in London, with youth unemployment at its lowest level for 25 years.”
Turning his fire on Labour’s new leadership, Mr Johnson mocked shadow chancellor John McDonnell’s call for the “fermenting” of the overthrow of capitalism.
He said: “I know there is a generation of young people who can’t remember communism and who think it might be a good idea to ferment anti-capitalism as if it were some fruity alcopop.
“And so I say to all those £3 Corbynistas – we tried that. We tried fermenting anti-capitalism in the Soviet Union. We have tried brewing it in Britain in the 1970s and in many other parts of the world.
“And the result has been the kind of toxic moonshine that sends you blind. Give that hooch a miss.”