Having vaguely paid off my debts to the much-absent phenomenon at conferences called sleep, I am now in something of a state to give an account of those two days.
After an inauspicious start due to a technical error with the train, I travelled up to Birmingham and got settled into my hotel. From there a brief ride to the ICC and an attempt to navigate through a sea of leaflets. Being what has now been termed a “conference virgin“, I failed to keep my wits about me and suddenly found myself burdened with tonnes of them.
I have always wondered if M.C. Escher’s work could ever be made into a reality, and, as Niall Paterson noted, the ICC has managed to come very close to achieving it. Continuing this artistic theme were a series of posters on a soviet theme. The traditional messages one would expect of such posters were instead inverted with conservative themes of the importance of civil society, personal responsibility and the rejection of the overwhelming state.
My morning was spent floating between the various stalls I had noticed in my conference guide, accumulating a modest amount of freebies. Of particular note was the stand run by Total Politics, distributing free copies of the Guide to Political Blogging 2008 (look in the back to find me listed), and the must-have UK Politics Top Trumps cards.
The internet cafe was distinctly disappointing. For a conference of thousands of representatives we had access to five computers. This was part of the reason why my intention to live blog consistently was significantly curtailed, and I can’t have been the only blogger to have felt let down. Despite the prominence of the centre-right on the blogosphere, it was a significant failure to not make our job easier and ensure regular, favourable coverage. It is distinctly inconvenient to have to drag a laptop all over the ICC, let alone find somewhere quiet to sit and write. The sight of Tim Montgomerie and Dan Hannan hunched over their laptops in a corner of the Freedom Zone was amusing, but not ideal. Something to consider in subsequent years will be the provision of blogging facilities similar to those provided to mainstream media outlets: a place to plug in your laptop and type away from the distractions of the main hall.
Following this was a lunch at the Salisbury Club. A useful opportunity to meet with friends and newcomers alike. As this was what had brought many Conservative Future types to conference, it became a vital way of working out how to plan the rest of one’s time and navigate the dizzying array of fringe and social events.
For the rest of the afternoon I managed to get into the main hall to watch Boris Johnson’s speech and the Armed Forces session. Boris was, as one would expect, on good form. He made a witty riposte to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s criticism last year, before moving on to his traditional humourous territory. The Armed Forces session had an impressive array of speakers, featuring Liam Fox, Frederick Forsyth, Simon Weston, Col. Stuart Tootal and two former Majors. The tone was distinctly angry, with Forsyth claiming that around sixty soldiers had died as a direct result of the “blithering incompetence” of a government that had failed to adequately fund a war on two fronts while “frittering billions away on trivia”. Weston and Tootal made particularly impassioned personal pleas, particularly over the issue of dedicated military hospitals and the fractured civil-military relationship in some quarters. The reception of the audience was largely one of restrained outrage: were the panel not all on the same side, a Cherie Blair moment could have ensued.
After that I went over to a meeting of senior members of CF, where I gave a speech that, while not to everyone’s taste, was nonetheless well-received. Given that it was something of a maiden speech, I may have got a little carried away with myself though. Much discussion followed adjacent to a rather heated debate, as prior to that I had been something of an unknown. Accusations of being a plant of the leadership were subsequently thrown round, which was a rather flattering idea. The rest of Sunday evening was given over to drinking in an entirely serious and non-celebratory manner. Of particular amusement was encountering Alex Hilton, author of Recess Monkey and joint owner of LabourHome, who one can only conclude had either undergone a Damascene conversion, or suffered some immense traumatic brain injury. He seemed to think that not only was he a Tory, but an investment banker as well. He gave the impression to several leading figures that he was a Tory candidate. I do hope someone’s informed his CLP.
Sunday had an early start attempting to get into a fringe event run by Tories in DC over whether a Conservative ought to vote for Obama or McCain, with representatives from both campaigns. Despite arriving reasonably early the event had already filled far beyond capacity; the US elections are by far a settled question within the party. Forced to forage for food elsewhere, I headed back to the ICC once more. This day was centred more around the Freedom Zone, an off-site fringe marathon organised by the Freedom Association. The first event I attended was a session by Dan Hannan and Douglas Carswell promoting their new book The Plan, an articulation of ideas of Direct Democracy, Parliamentary Sovereignty and Euroscepticism condensed into a series of legislative instruments supposedly achievable within a single twelve-month session of Parliament. Having bought a copy and had it signed, I started to read but have yet to get beyond the diagnostic and into the prescriptive. What it has offered so far is interesting, although it gives the impression of overstating the case as a means of opening gambit.
Bumping in to Iain Dale and David Davis on my way out, your intrepid author then wandered back to the main conference area to watch George Osborne’s speech on one of the TVs. I had said earlier on my Twitter feed that he was going to have a significantly more important role than had otherwise been predicted, and in that I was correct. He struck the right tone: he made no attempt to defend the crass amorality of some in the financial services sector, and called for a return to traditional fiscal conservatism. While there has been some dissection of his proposals on freezing council taxes, particularly the issue over it being voluntary, there is nonetheless an argument that it is still achievable. By being elected on the back of such a promise a Conservative government would have a sufficient mandate and influence to be able to pressure councils into adopting such measures, appealing to popular authority over what looks to become a key proposal from the conference.
Lunch was taken at a fringe event organised by the Electoral Reform Society’s Votes at 16 campaign. This was poorly chaired: he did not even bother to hide his partiality, and despite having my hand up for almost the entirety of the event, I only got called on to speak at the very end. A little attempt to keep one’s biases to a minimum or at least acknowledge the chap with a pageful of notes who was first to raise his hand would have been enough to mollify me. Votes at 16 presented, as per usual the best argument against their own case: dogmatic, uncompromising, unsophisticated and hectoring, sticking to the usual lies about being able to fight in wars and likening themselves to the suffragettes. They were rather amusingly countered by Donal Blaney, who turned their own arguments against them. Despite these pitfalls the debate was nonetheless rigorous, and enjoyable.
After this I ended up getting collared by the Chairman of Conservative Future, Michael Rock, who decided that I was “sound” and thus thrust a business card into my hand. I then got to establish my vastly impressive leadership skills by showing an assortment of representatives the way to the Freedom Zone once more for a discussion entitled Freedom and the Internet, chaired by Iain Dale, and involving Guido Fawkes, the Devil, Nadine Dorries and Dizzy. A sensible discussion over the implications of this relatively new medium ensued, with numerous other bloggers including Mike Rouse and Tory Bear in the audience. I made a slightly rambling point about Derek Draper’s attempts at a “rapid rebuttal unit” being likely to fail (something I intend to write about at a later date), and was subsequently accused by Guido of reading Dale’s blog “500 times a day”. This of course is a completely false allegation: I only read his blog 400 times a day.
My time at conference rapidly drawing to a close I then moved over to the pub with several of the audience before getting sidetracked into a rather vigorous discussion regarding the relationship between morality and the state. I fear that my case may have been somewhat less good than I thought it was at the time. Suddenly on full alcohol-fuelled speech mode, I ended up giving an impromptu tirade on the care system, before catching up with myself and realising that this was probably not appropriate conversation given that the pub was acting as something of a safe haven from the oratory of the ICC. Moving back to the Freedom Zone once more I ended up discussing the Russia-Georgia conflict over a cup of tea and sandwiches, before moving round the room collecting as many assorted freebies as possible.
Having stashed my bag with as many freebies as possible, I did one last lap of the ICC and had a quick chat with the local CF Branch, before heading home. Thanks to a bizarre number of taxis refusing to pull over, I had to run to the station, and in a moment of pure drama (if one does not own a TV), jumped onto the train as it started moving off the platform. Doubtless in violation of some Health and Safety regulation, but “it didn’t do me any harm”.
Conference was overall a rather enjoyable experience and an excellent source of debate and centre-right ideas. While there have been some suggesting that we should get rid of them, away from the pageantry of the main hall a lot of the debate, discussion and networking that is vital to modern politics goes on, and doing away with a means of meeting people of a centre-right persuasion from all over Britain would only be bad for conservatism as a whole. Despite the rather fast pace of events affecting conference, making the slogan “Plan for Change” rather prophetic, it was nonetheless able to respond well. How it plays out in the media in the next few weeks will be very interesting indeed.
UPDATE: I have been informed by Mr. Hilton via the comments section that at no time did he actually consider himself an investment banker or give that impression, and have updated the article accordingly. I apologise for any distress this may have caused him and his political career.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
i may have been discussing investment banking – has been a hot topic this weeek. i certainly never purported to be such a beast.
Then my source was incorrect. I apologise and shall update the article accordingly.