This was Cameron’s ‘greatest’ speech ever if you count his uses of the g-word. Great Britain, great schools, great traditions, a great Conservative party, the greatest team a prime minister could have. Greater days. Greater Britain. Stepping stones to greatness. He mentioned the election with a gooey tinge of Gift Card Dave. ‘As dawn rose, a new light, a bluer light fell across these isles’.
And he dispelled any lame-duck thoughts. On the contrary, he acted like an anxious boozer loading himself with trebles just before closing time. He’s going to fix everything. Poverty, discrimination, inequality, addiction, crime and the rental crisis. Large chunks of this speech would have been cheered by the Fabian society. He called for a ‘national crusade’ to build more houses – (‘crusade’ being a Labour copyright word.)
The Eton boy offered himself as a redeemer of the underclass. Usually when a top Tory mentions prostitutes and criminals at conference it’s to deny all the allegations. But Dave revealed some alarming statistics. A quarter of convicts and 70 per cent of prostitutes have been in care. Three babies a day are born hooked on heroin.
‘We, the state, are their parents. What are we setting them up for? The dole, the street, an early grave.’
To ease the pressure on children’s homes he’ll accelerate the adoption process. ‘Let us say to those families yearning for a child that we Conservatives, we are the ones who will bring you together.’ There was a lot of this salvationist rhetoric. At times he sounded like a starry-eyed zealot from a Bernard Shaw play. By coincidence he’d discovered an aged leftie, named Bernard, who wrote to him confessing that after a lifetime of voting Labour he’d realised they didn’t help the workers. Only the Tories did.
Cameron invited more conversions. ‘It’s never too late.’
We got a bit of Flashman when Jeremy Corbyn cropped up. The PM may have been advised to deliver the ultimate insult by omitting the Labour leader altogether. But street-fighter Dave couldn’t resist a full-frontal assault.
‘We cannot let that man inflict his security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising Britain-hating ideology on this country we love.’
He was kinder to enemies from his own side. He delivered a plug for Lord Ashcroft’s hostile biography. ‘I was a hooker,’ he said of his rugby days. ‘That’s a fact not a chapter from the book.’ And he offered a glowing tribute to Boris which brought the hall to its feet. Cameron beamed slyly. This is probably the first time in political history that a standing ovation has been used as a put-down. ‘You no longer threaten me’.
Much of the speech consisted of conjuring tricks. Or sketchy ideas for conjuring tricks. He said anyone involved in FGM or forced marriage would be arrested. Members of housing associations will buy their flats and become freeholders overnight. Task-forces will burst into the offices of failing social workers and replace them with ‘the brightest and best.’
Saviour Dave accept the cheers of the crowd and walked off with SamCam who wore racy eye-catching crimson. The absolute power couple. But the PM’s power seems to derive from higher sources than politics these days. What did he do straight afterwards? A swim? He could walk it. A glass of water? It would come out as wine. A fish supper? He’d leave a feast for five thousand.
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