Politics Archives

Thursday

8 Oct 2009

Who has the time to watch a weekday conference speech?

The activists here are already queuing up for David Cameron’s speech. But very few people outside of this conference centre are going to watch the whole speech: how many people have an hour free at 2.15pm on a weekday? If we want conferences speeches to be watched by more than conference delegates, then they need to be on in the evenings or on the weekend. Just imagine how many more people would watch Cameron, or would have watched Brown last week, if the speech started at 8pm. US conventions take place mostly in prime time, with the networks being strong-armed into covering them for at least an hour a

Rod Liddle

Dannatt, gimmicks and half-wits

Sir Richard Dannatt’s usefulness to the Conservative Party has just reduced by about ninety per cent as a consequence of his decision to accept an advisory post with the party. Henceforth, all criticisms he makes of the conduct of the war in Afghanistan will be taken with a pinch of salt, because he is now a Tory primarily, rather than an independently-minded soldier who wants only the best for his former comrades. Worse, future criticisms of the government – should there be any – from currently serving military leaders will also lose much of their potency through association: we will not know if they too are about to hop on

Peter Hoskin

Here lies the General Well-being agenda

Remember David Cameron’s General Well-being agenda? You may not. It was pretty nebulous stuff, which he deployed during the decontamination overdrive early in his leadership. We haven’t heard much about it since – probably as Cameron & Co. realised it could fuel the worst Notting Hill caricatures of them, at a time when the economy was going south and thousands of people are losing their jobs. Which is why it was striking to see “General Well-being” exumed for this Manchester conference. Yes, the press centre cafe is called the GWB cafe (picture below). Kinda tells you all you need to know about that particular Cameroonian non-starter. P.S. For any CoffeeHousers

Peter Hoskin

Contrasting Cameron and Osborne

Judging by the Independent’s preview, as well as the quotes that ConHome have managed to get their hands on, Cameron is going to do Hope ‘n’ Change in his speech today. Yes, he talks about a “steep climb ahead,” but he adds that “the view from the summit will be worth it.” This sounds like the growth and recovery element which many thought was lacking from the Osborne speech. As it happens, there was actually a growth section in a near-to-final draft of the Shadow Chancellor’s address, but it was taken out over concerns about timing. I suspect the double act – Osborne selling pain, with Cameron selling hope –

David Blackburn

Osborne is the key to Cameron’s success

Initially, I thought George Osborne’s conference speech was unremarkable. Osborne, the second coming of Stafford Cripps, painted the grimmest picture since The Scream. He was relentless, remorseless. in fact, the argument that the Tories ‘relish cuts’ and are out of touch almost seemed plausible, as Osborne, the heir to an Anglo-Irish baronetcy with a flair for interior design, told the nation that “we’re all in this together”. But in the wider tactical context of securing a Conservative victory, it was a brilliant speech. Writing in the Independent, Matthew Norman concludes: ‘Adorable he will never be, and as an orator he makes the Speaking Clock sound like Cicero, but undeniably he

Wednesday

7 Oct 2009

Fraser Nelson

Activists for Dave

I don’t know this lady’s name, but she is a genuine example of an enthused Tory grassroots activist. She was queuing behind me in security and I noticed her bag. “It’s my own kinda Blue Peter job,” she said. What inspired her to make the design? “Because my party was going nowhere for eight years, then David came along and changed that. When your party recovers, and you know your country will, then that’s something to be pleased about.” So pleased she made this handbag. Surely Smythsons should buy the design?

James Forsyth

The demise of the speed camera

One of the more interesting influences on the Conservatives is behavioural economics. The book ‘Nudge’ informs quite a lot of their thinking and one of its author Richard Thaler is now an official advisor to the party; his co-author is heading up regulatory policy for Obama. One of the major British evangelists for behavioural economics and its insight is The Spectator’s own Wiki Man, Rory Sutherland. He drew this magazine’s attention to Thaler and Nudge long before people in the Westminster Village had cottoned onto it. I’m told that it was a piece that he wrote on Coffee House which inspired Theresa Villiers to announce the effective end of speed

Alex Massie

The Man Who Would Be a Peer: General Sir Richard Dannatt

Plenty of Tories are, it seems, cock-a-hoop about the news, still to be confirmed, that General Sir Richard Dannatt is to be elevated to the House of Lords where he will become a Tory defence adviser and, perhaps, a minister in the next Conservative government. And, in fairness, one can see why the Conservatives would be so pleased. There’s no-one on the Labour benches who brings as much firepower to the political battlefield as General Dannatt. Yet if the government’s criticisms of General Dannatt were, at times, unseemly then so too was his very public dissension from (aspects of) government policy at a time when he was, after all, in

Peter Hoskin

Pre-Freudian slip

Theresa May is chairing a discussion with a set of Conservative PPCs on ‘job clubs’, as part of this afternoon’s focus on welfare reform. She kicks off asking one of the Tory PPCs on the panel, Maggie Throup, to talk about job clubs in her area: “So, Maggie, tell us about…”. Problem is, May addresses her remarks at the wrong PPC, Suzy Davis. Mistake realised, she wheels round and puts the same question to the actual Maggie Throup. Not a good start. It’s picked up since. The welfare adviser David Freud, who jumped ship from Labour to the Tories, is now on stage. And he gets a cheer when he

David Blackburn

The Culture Secretary’s loaded gun is jammed

Ben Bradshaw is in gladiatorial combat with the Beeb. Battling the BBC is an all consuming passion for BB and, like the Lone Ranger, he fights alone. With Twitter as his Tonto, he has already fired salvos of no more than 140 characters at the Corporation’s “disgracefully feeble” scrutiny of the Conservatives, and this morning he targeted the Today Programme. Outraged by Evan Davis’, I thought, appropriately pointed interrogation of George Osborne, Bradshaw tweeted: “Another wholly feeble and biased Today programme rounded off with a fawning interview with a Tory pundit!!” I will gloss over the Culture Secretary’s use of two exclamation marks because, as the Education Secretary misspells the

Peter Hoskin

Rolling in it

Well, the Tories will be pleased. According to Channel 4’s Gary Gibbon, they’ve made a tidy £1.5 million profit from their party conference. When you consider how much must have been spent in Manchester – it’s a very slick operation with banners, screens and corporate hospitalities everywhere – this news is yet another sign (were one needed) of the Tories’ momentum.

Peter Hoskin

Expect more “fine print” on spending soon

Sifting through this morning’s papers, you’d say that it’s mission accomplished for George Osborne’s speech yesterday. The realigned Sun demonstrates how much it has got behind the Tories, by giving the Shadow Chancellor an absolutely glowing report (“the Shadow Chancellor came of age”). He also receives good-to-medium notices in the Times, the FT and the Independent, while the Guardian is more mixed, but hardly damning. In the Mail, Quentin Letts writes that “Yesterday the Boy became Boss George”. And so on and so on. You can see where they’re all coming from. As I wrote yesterday, there’s much that was impressive in Osborne’s speech. But there were also some weaknesses

David Blackburn

Cameron needs to tackle the expenses scandal head on

The current consensus issue in British politics is not to discuss the expenses scandal. The so-called ‘New politics’ was a brief footnote in both Brown’s and Clegg’s conference speeches, but public anger remains palpable. Daniel Finkelstein points out that the Tories stand to lose the most from sidelining the issue: continuity undoes their claim that they stand for wholesale change. That is unquestionably true. Whilst the leadership prepare us for the age of austerity, visions of duck houses, moats and servants’ wings pervade the public consciousness, even though those responsible have been disciplined. David Cameron has been at the forefront of the ‘clean-up politics’ debate: Alan Duncan’s sacking, the proposed

Rod Liddle

Generally speaking, British voters haven’t taken to the Waffen SS

I am still not sure quite why the Conservative Party is determined to ally itself in Europe with the Waffen SS and Poland’s vigorous and exciting “No Yids or Queers” party. It has no need to do so. I assume Mr Cameron is at least mildly anti-SS and, while he might not in general like homosexuals or foreigners, has no wish to behave particularly nastily toward them. The Tories are in danger of making themselves look every bit as ridiculous over Europe as they looked in 1996, if for very different reasons. The party’s new allies, the Polish Law and Order Party and the Latvian Freedom and Fatherland Party (that

Tuesday

6 Oct 2009

David Blackburn

Aside from saving Gordon Brown, twice, what’s Peter Mandelson ever done for us?

For such a Big Beast, Ken Clarke’s speech this afternoon was very pedestrian. Admittedly, the subject matter, cutting red tape for small businesses, was unlikely to inspire a carnival of Churchillian wit and verve. However, Clarke did provide activists with a whiff of red of meat: he trashed Mandelson’s come back. “Yes, I agree with him – responsibly and in the national interest – agree with him on the future of Royal Mail. We agreed with him when he took his Bill through the House of Lords. And what happened? That weak and dithering Prime Minister – Gordon Brown – has stopped him bringing his Bill into the House of

Peter Hoskin

Cameron & Osborne getting into a muddle over 50p tax

When Fraser interviewed David Cameron last week, the Tory leader suggested that the 50p tax rate would be easy to drop, if necessary. If it doesn’t raise any money, then – voilà! – it’s gone. In fact, here are the Tory leader’s words: “If you’re right that it raises no revenue, even in the short term then clearly it would be painless and advantageous to get rid of it at an early stage.” But George Osborne’s policy package today contains this little nugget, taken from the press notes: “The new 50p tax rate and associated changes to the taxation of higher earners should be kept in place for at least

Fraser Nelson

Gotcha!

When David Cameron turned up to The Spectator’s party last night, I thought it only decent to ply him with a glass of fizz. After all, a magazine whose motto is “champagne for the brain” can hardly begrudge champagne for the guests. And what’s the harm, I thought – there were no photographers at the party. Right? Wrong. The picture is now on the front page of the Evening Standard – with yours truly beside Cameron having just plonked it in his hand a few seconds earlier. I promise, it wasn’t a set-up: we thought we’d cleared the place of photographers. We heard that someone a photo and my colleague

Peter Hoskin

Nothing exceptional, but a job well done by Osborne

They stopped letting people into the conference hall for George Osborne’s speech long before the Shadow Chancellor took to the platform – it was packed, not even standing room. There was certainly an anticipatory buzz among Tory supporters, particularly after some of the policy announcements trailed in the papers this morning. One delegate assured me that “this is the speech when George will convince the nation that he’s the man to deal with Brown’s mess.” Everyone seemed pretty breathless. So did he pull it off? Well, my immediate response is “yes and no”. Probably more “yes” than “no”. There was much that was impressive in the speech. Osborne touched on

Peter Hoskin

How are the Tories responding to Labour’s pay freeze?

So what do the Tories make of Alistair Darling’s limelight-grabbing decision to freeze public sector pay? The ones I’ve spoken to seem perfectly relaxed with it. A little bit annoyed perhaps: wouldn’t you be, if your opponents appeared to cynically delay an announcement that they could have made during their own party conference last week? But they’re confident that the public will see through the stunt, and that it will actually reflect badly on Brown & Co. On top of that, the Tories are sure that Labour will make little headway in a news agenda that will be dominated by Tory announcements for the next few days. It’s hard to

Peter Hoskin

Will the civil service block Tory Euroscepticism?

Of all the countless leaflets, pamphlets and circulars being handed out in Manchester, one of the most interesting is a glossy collection of essays entitled Cameron’s Britain. It has been put together by the folk at Portland PR – who recently hosted that “war game” which James reported back on – and has entries on everything from the NHS to tackling global poverty. As it doesn’t seem to be online, I figured it’s worth quoting from one of the most insightful essays of the bunch: that by Steve Morris, a former Downing St adviser, on the Whitehall machinery that the next government will have to get to grips with. Norris