Conservatives are self-proclaimed builders but is their work sound?

And he proclaimed: “We are the builders. And to build, you must build on solid foundations. We’ve laid those foundations these last five years.”

There was lots of reaching out to traditional Labour voters.

And Mr Osborne declared that, “when the economy fails…it’s always working families who lose their jobs”. Given it would be difficult to lose a job if you do not have one, this was perhaps one of relatively few statements in his speech that could not be challenged.

So, what should we make of Mr Osborne’s unwavering belief that what the Conservatives have been doing to the UK economy is working?

One of the more robust responses came from trade union Unite.

Unite declared: “George Osborne continues to be the snake-oil salesman of British politics, presiding over a phoney recovery, giving the rich an inheritance tax gift, yet bringing harsh cuts to millions of workers struggling to make ends meet.”

And Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: “George Osborne’s speech to his party conference failed to tackle the issue of a faltering recovery, the looming swingeing cuts to working tax credits, the ballooning of the national debt, and the fact this government created the longest fall in real living standards since the 1870s.”

Indeed, the Chancellor did not dwell upon any of these crucial points at the party conference.

Obviously, he and Unite are on different sides of the fence.

That said, the economic backdrop much more often seems like the picture painted by Unite, rather than the one sketched out by Mr Osborne.

Overall, people’s earnings have started rising again in real terms. But this appears to be largely because, under the Conservatives, the UK economy is not strong enough to enable annual consumer prices index inflation to get much above zero, even with UK base rates having been at a record low of 0.5 per cent since March 2009.

And what about the many years of falling real pay during the Conservatives’ period in power? Or the prevalence of zero-hours contracts? Or the huge impact that cuts to working tax credits will have on the already stretched finances of many, many thousands of families?

The Resolution Foundation think-tank warns that, taking into account tax and benefit measures in Mr Osborne’s July 8 Budget and the introduction of the national living wage, a further 200,000 children, predominantly from working households, will fall into poverty in 2016.

The further £12 billion of cuts in annual welfare spending outlined in the July Budget will also have a huge impact on the already struggling UK economy.

Unite has a point. The recovery does seem a bit “phoney”. It was meant to be built on the “march of the makers”, on exports by a great British manufacturing sector. Instead, it has relied in very large measure indeed on refuelling a housing market at what looked like exactly the wrong time for such a move. Then again, it was not the wrong time for the Conservatives, coming in plenty of time for the impact of the huge UK Government support measures for the housing market to be felt in time for May’s General Election.

Mr Osborne is not talking about the “march of the makers” any more. Instead, he is going with the “we are the builders” mantra.

While Unite’s picture seems much more like the one that most people are looking at, it is always important in such situations to look at what the independent commentators are saying.

On the day on which Mr Osborne was delivering his conference speech, a survey from the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply showed that growth in the UK’s dominant services sector had slowed in September to its weakest pace in two-and-a-half years.

Chris Williamson, chief economist at CIPS survey compiler Markit, has estimated UK economic growth slowed to 0.5 per cent in the third quarter from 0.7 per cent in the preceding three months. And he saw the UK economy expanding at a quarterly pace of only around 0.3 per cent going into the final three months of the year.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research, an independent think-tank, also believes UK economic growth will have slowed to 0.5 per cent in the third quarter. So does Howard Archer, chief UK economist at consultancy IHS Global Insight.

Scottish Government figures have this week shown the economy north of the Border grew by only 0.1 per cent in the second quarter.

Noting the Scottish figures, and highlighting signs of slowing growth in the UK as a whole as well as the impact of weakening expansion in China, University of Strathclyde emeritus professor of economics Brian Ashcroft warned of a danger of renewed recession if interest rates were raised too quickly.

And fellow economist Jeremy Peat, visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde’s International Public Policy Institute, wrote in The Herald on Monday: “Domestically I see three key risks. First, our economic growth remains unbalanced, with lower investment and export growth than we would wish and a continuing undue reliance upon the increasingly indebted consumer. Second productivity still disappoints…Third, inflation is exceptionally low by any standards, without any hint of an early pick-up.

“Both Government and Bank of England should be on the look-out for the deflation risk, and be prepared to act early rather than take any chances. Raising even expectations of a rate hike soon, with the added adverse effect this would have on the cost of servicing Government and consumer debt, would be most dangerous folly.”

Mr Ashcroft also cited high household debt levels as a particular risk to the UK economy.

He said: “We are getting to the point now where the best of the recovery might well be past. This notion that we should somehow be pushing up interest rates very quickly is very damaging, more so because a large degree of debt still exists in British households.”

So much for Mr Osborne’s claim of “solid foundations”.