Tories know how to find themselves a good drink

I feel old, and feelings are not always wrong, This eheu fugaces mood came on me at the Conservative party conference in Manchester. I realised that it was 46 years since I first attended this gathering, before the present Prime Minister was born and when his predecessor was barely old enough for Father Christmas. The trouble is that she still believes in him.

There have been changes in the near half-century. In the old days, the conference hotel was dominated by knights of the shire, or the grander esquires of the suburbs. They were all at least 55 and identically attired. If it was not Savile Row and Lobb it was something similar and almost as expensive, with a hint of eau de cologne grand cru.

There was also another set of grandees, who chaired the conference itself. They came from the north and were called Sir Fred or Sir Herbert or Sir Alfred. They prefaced every remark in the same way: ‘Ah’m a bloont man and where Ah coom from, we say what we think.’ This usually consisted of views on penal policy which would have made Lord Chief Justice Goddard sound like a wimpish liberal. Over a drink, they were all delightful.

One Lady did reach the higher ranks: Dame Adelaide Doughty, a magnificent old girl who looked like the prow of one of Nelson’s three-deckers. The Sir Fred who introduced her referred to her as Dame Doughty: inaccurate but wholly appropriate.

There was one amusing difference between the representatives who attended the south coast conferences and the Blackpool ones. In Brighton and Bournemouth, the halls were filled with the respectable classes, who were hoping to catch a final few days of Indian summer: they do like to be beside the seaside.