Hezza still a conference darling after all these years
James Forsyth 3:14pm
Michael Heseltine just rolled back the years with a crowd-pleasing address to conference. Heseltine extolled the values of decentralisation, celebrated the triumph of the Tory agenda and bashed Gordon Brown for his failings. Tarzan also wins the prize for being the first, and I’m open to correction on this, speaker to quote Winston Churchill; declaring that the Tories must be ready to fight Brown with their ideas in the towns.
The necessity of the Tories getting off to a good start is demonstrated by the fact that the party has put their three most crowd-pleasing platform speakers—Hague, Heseltine and Boris Johnson—up on day one. Expect New York mayor Michael Bloomberg to send the delegates back to sleep, though.
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John
October 1st, 2007 7:46pm Report this commentOf course he had a good reception. He's one of the few Tory heavyweights left. he makes Cameron and Osborne look like the juvenile twits they are.
IAN JOSEPHS
October 2nd, 2007 7:23pm Report this commentMichael Heseltine is the best Prime Minister we never had !Still the finest speaker in Britain,if he had been Prime Minister there is no way Labour would have won 3 consecutive elections. Blair and Brown would by now be nothing but a distant fuzzy memory !
Bob T
October 2nd, 2007 11:55pm Report this commentI think the article rather under-sells Heseltine and Hague by describing them as crowd-pleasers. I'm a non-Tory Tory-watcher and confess that I was impressed with Heseltine's interview with the BBC's James Landale. In the past I've always thought him over-rated as a speaker and interviewee but here he was able to encapsulate party philosophy, their achievements - and the failure of New Labour in a lucid and positive way. I've been waiting for someone to say that the Conservatives are the "real thing" and New Labour the poor imitation - best try the original. There is a distinct element of truth in it and it reverses the damaging perception that they, the Conservatives, are continually playing catch up to New Labour. William Hague too it seems always has had that same ability to speak with a clarity of purpose. I guess that focus groups and triangulation kill clarity and overall consistency of purpose and turn speeches into shopping lists.
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