Blogging from Conference
Now that I’m settled in Conference I’ve got a set of measures up to ensure as much coverage as possible.
First, my Twitter Feed will have the most up-to-date postings of brief observations and thoughts.
Second, I am using a service called VR+ to do a form of podcasting. I make no guarantees as to doing this, but should I do so you can find the feeds here. I will make a post if that is the case.
Finally, I will be continuing to post to this blog as and when possible. I should be able to upload photos from my BlackBerry as well as write some more detail if I get the chance to.
So far after a somewhat extended journey spent sleeping, reading the papers and listening in on BBC journalists, I have arrived and am now writing from the official party internet café. I have the morning largely to myself to get acquainted with the layout of the conference centre and go to lunch with some of the senior people in Conservative Future. Following that my schedule is now slightly out-of-date. Because of the current economic conditions several events, such as “celebrating electoral success” have been cancelled to ensure that Ben Brogan’s “Tory Hubris Watch” and other similar activities are not the dominating theme. Given that I had signed today over to official events I now have considerably more free time than I expected.
Tomorrow I intend to attend predominantly fringe events, as well as a free breakfast, focusing around themes of social justice and excessive state intrusion into the private sphere.
Sphere: Related ContentParty Conference
I will be attending the first two days of Party Conference. I intend to attend as many fringe events as posisble, and hopefully do some broadcasting as well. I’ll be taking my Blackberry so there should be some posting as well.
Sphere: Related ContentStrategic Considerations
Despite the objections of some of us professing opinions that would make us naturally hostile to the speech of a Labour leader, the mainstream portrayal of Gordon Brown’s conference speech has been one of a further stay of execution. Not the “speech of his life”, although it may well have been, but generally speaking good enough to buy him some more time as the occupant of Number 10.
This, as far as I can observe, is the story of Gordon Brown’s premiership. Harold Macmillan wisely observed that events are indeed the most likely thing to blow a government off course. For Mr. Brown however it appears that the only course he and his government has is lurching from one event to the next with no clear direction or plan of action. At first this was accepted as some form of decisive leadership, as the floods and the abortive attack on a Piccadilly nightclub and Glasgow airport demonstrated. One year on however and it has worn thin.
Gordon Brown’s government has consisted almost entirely of small-scale tactical positioning and responses to events not of their choosing. It is small wonder then that the electorate have been such fair-weather friends in the face of economic crisis. As I observed earlier this week, the public are willing to make great sacrifices if they feel that it is in the service of something they can believe in. Focusing on short-term victories and muddling through crises without any overall strategy or vision will not win the public over to any demand for sacrifice, either from politicians or the economic environment.
This may be inevitable. Mr. Brown’s cautious and calculating personality is at odds with the idea of bold, decisive leadership that the public craves in times of crisis. It is not however in the interest of either the public or the Labour Party in general. Without a coherent vision, set of ideas, or strong leadership, he will not be able to regain the respect of the public and restore their trust in him or his government.
A Prime Minister needs to do more than just assert who he is and what he believes in. He has to explain not only where he is coming from, but where he is going.
When Macmillan referred to “events, dear boy, events”, he was referring to their ability to blow the ship of state off-course. The problem the present government has is that is has no course, but is instead drifting in stormy waters, with a captain dithering at the helm and a wardroom in mutinous mood. Storms can be weathered if the captain can show the crew a course out, no matter how long and painful it may be. Currently however the charts are bare.
A tactical victory, defeat or failure counts for little if it is not incorporated into a wider overall strategy that can command the support of the public. Without that vision, inspiration or course Labour will be condemned to sink for possibly a decade or more.
Sphere: Related ContentBad Bad Bad
He just watched it on playback
Gordon Brown’s speech to the Labour Party conference was so bad I turned the TV off halfway through. Aside from a few jokes and a slightly less wooden manner, it offered nothing interesting, nothing substantial and nothing different to what we have been hearing over the past few weeks.
Attempting to count the number of times he referred to “hardworking families” was unable to sustain me. Even the amusing levels of abuse heaped on him from Guido’s blog was able to sustain my interest. I gave up, and turned off. Apalling speech.
That is really saying something as well: I’ve sat through plenty of boring speeches and been able to listen patiently. I did it for three days at the NUS Annual Conference last year. I try to listen to the speeches on both sides of a political argument, including watching as much of the Democratic and Republican conventions as I possibly could. This speech however, even with the promise that it would not last much longer than an hour, was unbearable. I gave up and put the kettle on instead.
If you didn’t watch it you didn’t miss anything Mix together the soundbites various loyalists have made in the press in the last fortnight, add a bit of the government line, blame the Conservatives for everything bad and throw in a Harry Potter joke for good measure and the result will probably be something similar.
In all probability if you do something like that, you’ll end up with a better speech.
UPDATE: Dizzy and Iain are in agreement. Maybe this is part of a cunning plan to bore his opponents into submission?
Sphere: Related ContentDelusion Central
We Love the Leader
I’m having a spluttering into my cornflakes morning. I’ve just watched James Purnell inisist that:
- There’s no bust;
- Nobody could have foreseen the current recession;
- “Gordon is the right man to lead us through these difficult times”.
1 and 3 really do not need any particular criticism, but were the government truly listening, as they have proclaimed to do so, they would know that the current economic turmoil was indeed warned about six years ago.
If you need further evidence of the increasingly delusional nature of the conference you can read Jon Cruddas’ Pravda-esque commentary over at the Coffee House.
This is getting ridiculous. Ministers and backbenchers are required to publicly express their adoration of the Great Leader, and deny anything that gets in the way of this narrative. It is not the Party which is wrong, it is the people who are wrong for not supporting the country. The present course must be maintained, even if its destination is oblivion.
It is understandable that MPs want to put a positive spin on things, but when what you say is so utterly at odds with what the country is thinking and feeling, it just comes across as a delusional arrogance that betrays a party unfit for power. The Party cannot regain its popularity if it refuses to acknowledge that it may be wrong somwhere along the line. Insisting that you are “getting on with the job”, it not good enough. Even if a leader needs to make unpopular decisions, they have to remind those they lead that they share and understand their concerns.
People will make great sacrifices and support unpopular measures if they believe that they are being done by good men for the right reasons. This conference ought to be establishing that the Cabinet are men of integrity interested in the long-term good of the country, taking actions that, although painful in the short term, will be better overall. Sitting around insisting that the problem is not theirs and blindly supporting the leader is not the way to do this. If Brown wants to remain Prime Minister he must earn the respect of his party and the electorate, not scare the PLP into supporting him.
Sphere: Related ContentTory Entryism
Luke Akehurst, after his withering attack on LabourHome’s poll declaring that most of the party membership want Gordon Brown to leave office, has set up a group called “We don’t want a Labour leadership election“.
Unfortunately for him it has, like the poll, been hijacked by Tories. Within its ranks are such well known-leftwingers as a former researcher to a Conservative MP, two Conservative Future chairmen, and Tory Bear.
Spot the Tories
Beyond the diehards, it seems the only friends Brown has are Tories.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Inconsistency of JK Rowling’s Donation
I feel that JK Rowling’s donation to the Labour Party may well be slightly inconsistent with present policy. Her present fortune is owed almost entirely to the telling of stories about life in a place that is quite clearly a Public School in terms of institutional ethos, history and the curriculum taught. Why then she has given a massive donation to the party that would most likely destroy it if it actually existed is somewhat baffling.
I defy anyone to suggest that Ed Balls would not decry Hogwarts as anything other than elitist in ethos; discriminatory against muggles in its admissions policy and creaming off the most talented in society.
It is nonetheless quite amusing to watch a complete U-turn. Within hours of Harriet Harman decrying wealth, the party she is deputy leader of opens with the feting of one of the richest people in the country.
Sphere: Related ContentPalin for President
It had to happen eventually:
Sphere: Related ContentA Question of Leadership
One more trick up his sleeve?
If the Prime Minister feels that the pressure exerted from the challenge to his authority will push him from office, will he jump by calling a general election?
Given his personality, this is less of a facetious question than it may first appear to be. Gordon Brown is known to be an immensely vicious political fighter, and when the stakes are that high it may be the last option available to him. Facing a general election with an unsettled question of party leadership would spell complete disaster for Labour; its unpopularity would be married to uncertainty and their share of the vote would diminish further. The threat of this nuclear option may be the strategy Brown adopts to save his career: threatening that if he goes, they all will go too.
Brown has for weeks been warning that any leadership challenger would have to face a snap election to establish any kind of popular mandate. It is entirely possible that he may now escalate this into a more direct threat of calling that election himself.
Like any nuclear option the possibility of bluffing and miscalculation remains high. Many Labour MPs may consider it an empty threat: they would look to the Prime Minister’s less than courageous record in other fields, and his failure to put David Miliband in his place. Wiser ones should look to his darker side: his ruthless, calculating and spiteful streaks. These may well lead him to commit one last act to spite those who would wield the dagger, and make sure that they never wear the crown they so desire.
Sphere: Related ContentFortune Favours the Bold
By this point we are beginning to wonder if anything is capably of saving Gordon Brown’s premiership from electoral disaster. The man has had countless stays of execution and relaunches, yet has failed to make any kind of dent in a formidable Conservative lead in the opinion polls.
The British public has a great disdain for the current Prime Minister’s reputation for indecidiveness and timidity. His standing has not recovered since his decision to abandon a snap election last year. Accusations of dithering, cowardice and a bunker mentality emerge with regularity from his critics. Parliamentary debates are replete with mocking references to his book on courage and “dithering heights”. Any recovery therefore requires the banishment of this stereotype lest it damage all subsequent policy.
Being persistently behind in the polls grants a freedom that popularity does not. The certainty of loss on one’s present course acts to reduce the risk inherent in courageous decisions: a loss-making decision when disaster is inevitable is at least remembered as an attempt to reverse one’s fortunes. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the other side of the Atlantic, where a flagging Republican campaign has managed to steal a lead over its rivals with the nomination of Governor Palin for Vice-President.
By contrast the attempt by Downing Street to recover its popularity is notable only for its timidity. Piecemeal and lacklustre, it fails to address the wider issues and sentiments hampering the Prime Minister’s fortunes. It has the feeling of obsessively plugging a single hole in a thoroughly perforated ship of state that is rapidly taking water. That it has taken so long to do so little leaves people feeling unable to trust the government to adequately address their anxieties.
This is not to suggest that the key to success at the ballot box lies in either radicalism or statism. One can be both bold and conservative. Instead what is needed is a willingness to confront the problems faced rather than avoiding them or merely fiddling with its fringes. Instead of running away from problems and engaging in the Westminster and Party games of positioning, triangulation and tactics, he should take some risks and articulate a coherent and inspiring vision for his government. It may not win him any votes now, but with the polls in their present dire state, there is no harm in trying.
The Prime Minister is keen to portray himself as a conviction politician. Conviction politicians are defined by their willingness to risk popularity for the sake of their beliefs. Brown now has the luxury of unpopularity being no risk. If he wishes to recover his fortunes he must assert those convictions.
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