Conferences and Confidence – or lack thereof?

It’s conference season, that time of the year when the parties’ eyes are all (overtly, at least) focused on the upcoming general election, and reading some of the coverage of this weeks’ Labour and Lib Dem events you’d be forgiven for thinking it was due to take place in a couple of months rather than years. The Tories’ have even launched their first anti-Labour poster of the election campaign: a crude bit of photoshopping of which Lord Ashcroft said “If I had recently donated funds to the Tories I would be asking what on earth CCHQ thought it was doing with my money.” [Might we recommend you contact the Felix team for better graphics works?]

The open question, even after these two years of debate, is whether we’ll have to wait till 2015 or not. The coalition, however improbably, trundles on, and the picture from the Lib Dems in Brighton last week suggests they’re still committed to the Coalition, but pushing hard to retain their separate identity. Delegates voted to continue supporting Osborne’s austerity measures, but also called on the party to oppose the so called ‘Secret Courts’ legislation proposed by the coalition.

The other big question with the Lib Dems is whether these displays of independence are being noticed at all. Lib Dem support has not so much stagnated as nose-dived. But two years is a long time; it’ll be an uphill struggle, but the delegates in Brighton seemed united and with Ashdown brought in to head the campaign the party may well succeed in restoring itself.

The Labour conference in Manchester, meanwhile, seemed to be about getting Ed Miliband noticed, and this is Labour’s own uphill struggle. A triumphant address to party on Tuesday seemed to earn him some much needed credibility, most of which seemingly evaporated the next morning during an interview with Evan Davis on Today. For Labour, the next two years are less launching a manifesto as bolstering their leader.