Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps deserves credit for a smoothly run conference in Manchester this week. There were no mistakes and the debates in the main hall were well choreographed. Happiest of all it seemed to me that there were fewer lobbyists and more ordinary members. And I noticed an increasing number of young members, which is very welcome. But I want to draw attention to one, unfortunate episode which seemed to me to symbolise a much bigger problem. On the Monday night I chaired a fringe meeting arranged by Engage, an organisation which tries to increase Muslim participation in British politics and society. The main presentation was made by its impressive chairman of trustees Sufyan Ismail, a successful businessman. He made a thought-provoking presentation, and I would summarise his argument as follows. First, British Muslims are naturally Conservative: hard-working, family minded, very commercial people who instinctively want to stand on their own two feet. Second, very few Muslims vote Conservative. This is mainly for historic reasons connected to Labour attitudes towards immigration in the post-war era. Third, for younger Muslims that period is ancient history, and many of them are entrepreneurs and professionals and now natural Tory targets. Fourth, the Tory party makes little or no effort to win them over. Mr Ismail then produced a devastating set of statistics which showed how important Muslims could be come the general election. He claimed that there are 77 marginal seats where Muslim voters could tilt the balance. The clearest case in point, said Mr Ismail, was his local seat of Bolton West, which has a 14,000 strong Muslim vote and the Tory candidate, Susan Williams, lost by only 92 votes in 2010 after a recount.

This generated an interesting discussion between an intelligent audience and the other panellists, Elizabeth Oldfield of Theos and the Tory MEP Sajjad Karim.

Peter Oborne | Read the full article on telegraph.co.uk