Diary

6 October 2007

Iain Dale's Blackpool Conference Diary

At every conference there’s always one person who becomes your personal stalker. You see them everywhere. This year mine turned out to be the 13th Marquess of Lothian, better known to you and me as Michael Ancram. Everywhere I went, he went. Every party I went to, he was there. Why should this bother me? It was I who took to the airwaves and the newspaper columns to denounce his recent pamphlet. I called him a dinosaur, Sir Bufton Tufton and God alone knows what else for breaking ranks on the eve of a conference and a possible election. But we never spoke. Either he hasn’t a clue what I look like (probably) or he decided to blank me (unlikely — he’s too polite). I wrestled with the dilemma of having a chat with him about it all, but then thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie. What a wimp.

Making a speech at a Tory conference can be a terrifying experience, especially if you discover just before you’re about to go on that you have left your speech in your Ribby Hall Holiday Chalet, several miles from Blackpool. So it was with some trepidation that I approached the speaker’s lecturn to talk about Rwanda, having hastily scribbled it out again. I always think you should feel nervous before a speech like this. This time I didn’t feel nervous at all, and it worried me. I was introduced by Nicola Blackwood, a Tory candidate from Oxford, who called me ‘Britain’s most famous blagger’. Nice. It got a laugh, though, and set me off to a good start. My mother rang me afterwards to tell me how well she thought I’d done — it’s what mothers are for, after all. She said how nice it was to see Gillian Shephard in a TV cutaway during my speech. I had to tell her that it was in fact Edwina Currie. It’s not the first time that mistake has been made.

I was followed by a Burmese lady, Zoya Phan, who made an impassioned speech urging international support for her country. I was not alone in having tears running down my face by the time she concluded. I was glad I didn’t have to follow her.

Iain Dale’s online conference diary can be read at http://iaindale.blogspot.com

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M Singh

October 4th, 2007 11:29am Report this comment

Cardiff has a hell of a lot more hotel rooms than Blackpool.

Justin McKeating

October 4th, 2007 11:31am Report this comment

Here's an idea. If Blackpool is such a 'hellhole', why don't you get some of your Tory chums to do something about it? Blackpool has a Tory council after all. Or is it just a case of traditional Tory snobbery and showing off to your hangers-on in the face of a town going to the dogs on the watch of Tory councillors? Compassionate Conservatism indeed.

Mesna

October 4th, 2007 2:39pm Report this comment

Yeah that's right. Blackpool has only started going to the dogs since May 3rd. Nothing to do with the 25 years on Labour mis-rule before that then, eh Justin??

UK Daily Pundit

October 5th, 2007 1:16pm Report this comment

Iain, your party is hoping to win marginal seats in the "hellhole" of Blackpool. Boris Johnson style rhetoric won't help the Conservative cause one bit.

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