Conservative Party Conference
The political equivalent of the office Christmas party
Party conference – the political equivalent of the office Christmas party. Careers are made or broken; too much alcohol and inappropriate sex; and all the dirty secrets get out. Thankfully much of that goes on behind the scenes, because the novelty of catching politicians with their trousers round their ankles would wear off pretty soon.
The media love to paint the party conferences as a “make or break” moment for the leaders of parties, but this time they really excelled themselves. Not only is the economy still not growing, and with unemployment especially among young people a continuing problem, Cameron’s party are going all out to make the headlines and not necessarily in the best way. The party’s Chief Whip, Andrew “Bruiser” Mitchell, was facing increasing pressure to resign after shouting obscenities at Downing Street police officers. Jeremy Hunt, Health Secretary is closing wards in one-fifth of hospitals and re-igniting the abortion debate along with the Women’s Minister, which is doing nothing to help the coalition Government’s image of being anti-women. Boris Johnson, in a thinly veiled lurch for leadership, is also posturing to keep a distance between himself and Cameron, and wrestling to take the media spotlight away from Cameron. This was never going to be an easy conference for the Conservatives.
Of course this conference was by no means all negative for the Conservative party, despite the difficulties faced in the rest of the political sphere – Cameron is still the most liked of the three main party leaders. The polls must look distressing, but mid-term of a government during a recession to be only 10 points behind is something to be not particularly worried about, especially as Labour’s lead is mostly caused by not being in the coalition rather than through offering a preferable alternative.
The Tuesday of conference brought Cameron to the podium. Calling for an ‘Aspiration Nation’, and describing aspiration as the engine for progress, will have gone down well with traditional conservative voters, but his most quoted line has to have been “I’m not here to defend privilege, but to spread it”. It may be oxymoronic to cite privilege as something that can be spread, but voters always like the notion that everyone can get richer or more successful.
The obedience of the Conservative party from 2005 from the arrival of David Cameron as their great leader is faltering. MPs are slowly speaking out of turn on issues they’re uncomfortable seeing pushed, such as Zac Goldsmith on Heathrow’s Third Runway, or Nadine Dorries on everything. You can see the push from all main parties to legalise same-sex marriage is angering the traditional Tory base. Lord Carey even managed to compare those calling opponents of equal marriage ‘bigots’ to Nazis. As Theresa May might have said, “We’re the Nasty Party”, but one of the major changes in the party through Cameron’s leadership was the shift towards more liberal social policy, and the key test to stand by this in tough times has been passed with almost flying colours. Fringe politicians making ill-advised comments at homophobic rallies aside, the bulk of the party remained in line during the conference, especially on the issue of same-sex marriage.
Those angered by the arrival of policies such as equal marriage will however have been well appeased by the touting of the Government’s latest policy – ‘Bash a Burglar’. To steal a line from Tony Blair, “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”, although I do not think that he had more rights for homeowners to attack those breaking into property in mind. Many backbench Tory MPs are unhappy with laws such as the Human Rights Act, so making a play to reduce the rights of criminals will do much to keep the Conservative party united, even when the Chief Whip is poised on the edge of resignation.
With the conference season rounded up, not much has changed. The coalition is still intact, Labour are still ahead in the polls, and the economy is still the biggest problem. The troops are rallied and each party is fired up to take the fight to the others, it is just a pity the next general election is not until 2015.
