Ah, Conference. The warm white wine has been necked, the lanyards have been donned and the YCs are still irrelevant. Everything is as it should be. Having been dispatched out to the Midlands with my fluorescent yellow press pass, I am happy to report that things are going rather ok. Not amazing. Just ok. A bit like cottage pie, perhaps?
The first thing you notice about the annual gathering of Thatcher worshippers is the quietness of it all. Much to the dismay of naive Tories who wish to give someone the middle finger, the square in front of the ICC is void of protestors and hecklers, aside from one chap who is keen to make a living as a comedian of sorts.
Christ, even Steve Bray opted not to show up. “We’re so irrelevant, fucking Steve Bray doesn’t bother protesting us anymore” one staffer remarked to me yesterday. It really is quiet. Compared to the likes of Reform’s conference in early September, everything feels a tad disconnected.
This is, in part, as a result of the labyrinth that is the ICC – how do I get to the skybridge, sir? – but everything feels a bit out of place. “Everything feels divorced,” one public affairs professional quipped, stating that when they were at the NEC, they couldn’t go five minutes before they bumped into someone they knew from SW1. But in the ICC, they’ve had no such luck.
The fringe events are of interest (particularly ConHome’s), but one is forced to make an arduous trek up flights of stairs and across a colossal maze just to find a half-full panel because one of the speakers themselves got lost. It just makes the whole thing feel unnecessarily sparse.
Alongside such an atmosphere comes the speeches – yes, people actually listen to them. Thus far they’ve all been incredibly meh. Kemi’s opening remarks were considered by many to be a bit on the safe side, and the Shadow Chancellor’s speech yesterday led one source to text me “Griffith speech pretty shit, no?” It’s not as though they said anything bad. No one took to the stage and said something overtly racist or anything. But there wasn’t much substance there either. They were just bang average.
The strategy looked to be to play it safe, and yet in doing so it appears the gathering has fallen victim to the curse of boredom. That’s not to say that everything is completely miserable. The wonderful team at the TaxPayers’ Alliance released a brilliant benefits dashboard, which has gotten people chatting away.
The Birmingham Tapestry is doing the rounds too, as is the case of one gentleman with a very fine moustache who has had his conference pass revoked. Will he be let back in? Will this be the last we ever see of him? Nobody knows, but his situation is far more interesting than whatever is happening on the main stage.
The innumerable drinks receptions are also ok as well. Every evening, you too can join an absurdly long queue to listen to some bloke you know very little about talk about a topic you know even less about, all whilst drinking a glass of cheap wine and wolfing down some canapés, talking to the people you got stuck with as your friend nipped to the loo.
“Ha! Yes, I do find [insert generic political topic] really interesting. Let’s discuss this more when we’re back in Westminster” you say to the random person you just bumped into, as you put their card in your jacket pocket, only never to speak to them again.
Of course, there are some worthwhile events too. Our 1922 Reception drinks on Sunday went down a treat. Panoramic views of Birmingham City Centre; endless glasses of champagne and wine; MPs, hacks and other big names all schmoozing with one another – it was a fantastic get together that would make any Tory feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
But these seem few and far between. I don’t know, maybe my cynical side is rearing its head once again. When I complained of the sort of lackluster atmosphere at one evening event, a friend remarked “but you’re just a pessimist. You don’t like most things.” Maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m just being downbeat for the sake of being downbeat.
But my hunch is that this tone is grounded in the fact that this Conference was a go big or go home moment. We had to make the most of this gathering, and use it to prove to the country that we’re back. Yet, at the moment, I fear that’s not happened.
The extraordinary thing is not that the Conference has gone badly, but that it has become so utterly unremarkable. There’s no real oomph about the place. Everyone seems jolly and optimistic, swanning about with their respective tribes and what not, but it all feels a bit average.
My fear is that things don’t pick up. Kemi is set to give her big speech tomorrow, and one hopes that it will go as well as many have hyped it up to be. But is there really any hope that it gets better? I don’t know.
I came into this conference hopeful about the gathering, and now I feel as though we have succumb to mediocrity. In an effort to make myself feel better, perhaps I’ll sit in Spoons with a pink gin and Pepsi Max. That will make all my problems go away.