The Tory conference was so forgettable that it’s hard now to remember it took
place earlier in the week. But, for what it’s worth, here are my conclusions from the whole conference season:
1. The search for Osborne’s growth strategy has been called off. This ‘leadership’ theme was short for ‘leadership in the crisis, which we’ve now decided is inevitable’. Printing £75 billion will be prelude to printing £400 billion, the inflation tax is back. Osborne perhaps thinks this new magic gold will bring economic recovery. So did the Emperor in Faust, when the devil suggested that printing money would avert fiscal crisis. This scheme ended in tears in Goethe’s masterpiece, and I doubt it will work any better for Osborne. QE is not a substitute for a growth strategy, and yet it’s being taken as one. If there were any new plans for growth, we’d have heard them at the Tory conference. The main innovation is how to share the magic, borrowed gold with companies. I have not changed my instant reaction: that this appears to be a dangerous recipe for sub-prime companies.
2. Ed Miliband’s bad speech (and Theresa May’s cats) will be the only thing anyone will remember. Labour’s conference suggested that it suffered not only a defeat, but a lobotomy. There were no new ideas, and the party is not just retreating to its comfort zone but building Golan Heights-style settlements there. The TUC effectively cancelled their conference, such is their capture of Labour. I went to an education fringe where a governor of a new City Academy was complaining that he had been “bribed” because the school was £400,000 better-off by cutting the local authority out of the picture. The room (and the now-reshuffled Andy Burnham) was appalled. To hear a Labour Party group appalled at more money for schools – because they think bureaucratic control is more important – makes you realise that the faction who resisted Tony Blair are triumphant. Labour has returned to its pre-Kinnock position: on the side of the vested interests. Given how much progress it had made under Blair, it was painful to watch.
3. Even unionists love Pol Roger. The Spectator had its reception on Tuesday night in Manchester, the hottest ticket in conference. Mainly because the drinks come in a flute courtesy of Pol Roger, who kindly sponsored the evening. My colleagues at the door did a great job keeping the guest list tight, but midway someone pointed out an unusual gatecrasher: Brendan Barber, head of the TUC, who was standing near the door savouring his Pol Roger as much as the next man. And rightly so. As Churchill once said of champagne: “in victory, I deserve it. In defeat, I need it”. I didn’t know that trade unionists observed the latter part of this dictum, but Comrade Barber proved me wrong. Even Cabinet members opted for the wine, but nothing is too good for the representatives of the people. The struggle, as they say, takes many forms.
4. School and welfare reform make this government worth supporting – and with enthusiasm. I hosted two fringes with IDS last week, and was amazed at the speed of his reforms and his handle on his subject. No matter how obscure the question, he knew everything: even the names and attitudes of various anti-poverty campaigners throughout the country. On Tuesday night it was standing room only: people had come to see a star. It was buzzing with ideas, energy and momentum. Perhaps even more significant was the speech by Quddus Akinwale, a teenager who believes his life was transformed by an Academy school. Now, this is an ARK school set up under Labour: he should have been invited to Liverpool and tell Labour delegates how a Blair policy transformed his life. But Labour is not in a fit state to recognise its own successes. The Gove video we ran last week says it all. I left the conference thinking that if nothing else was achieved in these five years, welfare and school reform would make this an extraordinary government.
5. The Lib Dems are midway through breaking up. Europe has many coalitions, but only in Britain would the junior partner hold a conference to slag off the senior partner. Coalition politics and Westminster don’t go together. The Lib Dem membership prefers opposition, the Lib Dem leaders prefer government. As CoffeeHousers know, the Lib Dems are not an ancient party: they have been around for a shorter amount of time than Kylie’s music career. My bet is that they will also be outlasted by it.
6. The Osborne Doctrine. The Chancellor’s very clear pledge – “we’re going to cut our carbon emissions no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe”– was rather overlooked. The Spectator’s leader this week welcomes what we call the Osborne Doctrine on climate change, and congratulate the Chancellor on a radical and necessary move which will halt many regulatory attacks on businesses. The Lib Dems are dismissing this as red meat, or Notting Hill tofu, thrown to party activists. I disagree. Osborne is Chancellor, much depends on his personal credibility. He deserves to be taken at his word.
6. Conferences are lifeless, but worth having. I blogged on Wednesday about the slow,
corporate takeover of party conferences, but I’d stop short of switching to a US model where they’re only held pre-elections. And why? Aung San Suu Kyi put it best in this moving
video:
“Peoples in countries where democracies practice take such conferences for granted. For them, for a party to hold an annual conference is a very simple thing. For us, it is a goal towards which we have been working for many, many long years.”
The 2011 conferences were all pretty uninspiring. But they are periods where the media focuses on all three of the main parties, and the public can see if there are any exciting messages or not. The parties are poked and prodded, and subjected to intense examination. This year, the conclusion is that – with the exceptions I mentioned above – no one has any good ideas. Boring, yes, but definitely worth knowing. Listening to Aung San Suu Kyi again, she’s right: on balance, the right to be bored by (and rude about) party conferences is a precious one.
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