Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Is Boris the fluker about to stumble his way to a Brexit victory?

The prime minister usually spends several weeks fine-tuning his conference speech. Today Boris gave an address that felt as it if had been roughed-out yesterday evening and converted into a final draft over a full English breakfast.

The informality looked good. No autocue. Just notes and smiles as he climbed the low step onto the platform. He benefited from a sensible new stage lay-out. Previously the lectern had been set many yards back from the audience. Today it stood on a narrow causeway thrust deep into the crowd. It’s easier for a speaker to excite an audience that surrounds him physically.

He began on a sombre note with ‘a tribute to my predecessor.’ The hall threw its silence back at him. ‘Theresa’, he prompted, as if her name had already vanished from their memories. ‘Theresa May.’

More silence.

‘I know the whole conference remains full of gratitude to you for your patience and forbearance.’

Finally some applause, but it was strangely accented. The sound of hands clapping and teeth grinding.

Then he cheered them up with a blast of can-do Cap’n Boris optimism. Britain, he said, is the most successful political partnership in history, ‘which we will protect and defend against those who would wantonly destroy it.’

He poured scorn on socialism and ‘the deranged and ruinous plans borrowed from the playbook of Bolivarian Venezuela.’ He extolled the ‘vital symmetry’ between public investment and economic success.

‘Dynamic free-market capitalism,’ he cried. ‘Yes. You heard that right. When did you last hear a Tory leader talk about capitalism?’

A dig at David Cameron who hated to be reminded of his affluence and privilege. No such qualms for Boris.

He spoke warmly of Brexit-voting towns that had suffered ‘a lack of love’, where people felt their views were ‘unmentionable.’ And he made overtures to ‘the millions who voted Remain but are first and foremost democrats.’

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