The speech bombardment is over. With the exception of the SNP conference, all major Westminster parties have held their annual meetings and the general public, to say nothing of the political observer, never wants to see a politician behind a lectern ever again.
Before the Conservatives descended upon Manchester, there was the boredom offensive; the political doldrums of incompetence, inertia and irrelevance. Tim Farron, almost Boadicean in his fierce leadership of a disordered and toothless mass, could not gain the public’s attention despite a valiant speech. Jeremy Corbyn’s Red Army, divided and disarmed, showed no sign of advancing.
Then arrived Conservative Party Conference. Buoyed by the position of majority government for the first time this century, the Tories were a bellicose, swaggering battalion. David Cameron led a multipronged attack; between his team there were few policy areas they did not grab, few blocs of the electorate to which they did not make overtures.
George Osborne led the capitalisation on Labour’s hamstrung policy engine and fresh leadership. There were few commentators who did not acknowledge the radicalism of the Chancellor’s speech, which bore eye-catching policies such as the handover of business rates to local authorities’ control; a Labour manifesto commitment. Mr Osborne shamelessly pilfered Labour personnel too, announcing former Transport Secretary Lord Adonis’s appointment to take charge of a national infrastructure commission. Labour are under siege and the Conservatives’ intentions are clear: to pitch their party as the only credible option for those across the political centre, and in so doing not only push Labour to the unelectable far-left, but to close the door behind them too.
Disillusioned centrists were not the only Tory targets. Theresa May fulfilled the role of bulldog perfectly with an attack on migration and a hardline stance on asylum seekers and student visas. It may have been met with scathing criticism in the press, but the pandering to the UKIP persuasion of the electorate was as clear as it was understandable. For Mr Cameron, the Home Secretary’s speech performed a specific function, another prong in his line of attack: to reassure the public that the party hasn’t softened its stance on immigration issues and to counterbalance the compassionate conservatism awash elsewhere in the conference. For Ms May, the quid pro quo was a platform to mount her party leadership campaign on a hardline, right-wing pitch.
Elsewhere in the conference, Zac Goldsmith was championing localist and environmental agendas for his London Mayoral campaign. The current Mayor, Boris Johnson, delivered a One Nation and Eurosceptic–tinged speech. Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne, or Camborne, clearly want the Conservatives to be all things to all people, precisely because there is a belief that with the implosion of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, there exists the opportunity to be so.
Mr Cameron’s address was the distillation of this strategy. It fused the themes from all the top speeches and executed them with all the incessancy of a heavy artillery shelling. Resuscitating the ‘Big Society’, Mr Cameron handed out something for everyone: for liberals, there was time given to gender and racial equality; for Eurosceptics, a rallying call for renegotiation with Brussels; for the poor, attacks on poverty, housing and social mobility; for business, fiscal responsibility; and for security hawks, commitments to renew the Trident nuclear deterrent. However, unfortunately for Labour, there was very little for them, and red may not be the only colour flag getting airtime by their conference next year.
What can halt the Tory juggernaut? For the conquered, there is still a glimmer of hope.
It comes in the form of friendly fire. For when the jollity and back-patting of this year’s Conservative Party Conference fades, the spectre of the party’s looming civil war on EU membership will rise. Next year’s referendum on the UK’s EU membership will mark the culmination of three decades of discontent within the Tories, and the campaigning in the lead up to the poll, as well as the consequences of an ‘Out’ vote, threatens to be seismic. Rivals will be willing on the chaos that Mr Cameron hopes to avoid by sealing concrete renegotiations with Brussels. For the Conservatives’ foes presently licking their wounds, an opportunity for a renewed offensive may not be quite as far away as first feared.
thetwopence 