‘Tory Crisis’ screamed the headlines on the eve of Conservative Party Conference. This was to make a mountain out of a large molehill. Fears that the whole week would be overshadowed proved unfounded. Junior Minister Brooks Newmark’s indiscretion was a distraction but there have been many more salacious scandals involving more senior Parliamentarians. This one didn’t seem to reveal much about anything, apart from Mr Newmark’s taste in pyjamas, and it quickly turned into a story about entrapment.
Mark Reckless’s defection to UKIP is more complicated but the PM successfully stoked the sense of betrayal at the 1922 Committee’s reception on the Sunday night. This mood continued and overall it had the effect of uniting the Conservatives rather than spiralling into whispering on the fringe about inadequate leadership. The Party will be hoping that activists will be galvanised into campaigning for the upcoming by-elections, although if Mark Reckless loses his seat to Labour it will be helpful evidence that the Party line ‘vote UKIP get Miliband’ is electorally accurate as well as emotive.
Of course delegates did not keep their feelings on Europe under wraps; it would not be Conservative Conference had they done so. There’s even an actual policy to debate now in the form of renegotiation and a referendum rather than the usual slightly aimless ranting. The IEA’s fringe event on the issue was standing room only with people straining from outside the door to catch John Redwood’s words. Later in the week one lady (not an MP, thankfully for the press office) showed her contempt for the EU by burning the flag.
The Chancellor’s speech was a pitch to voters’ heads rather than hearts. His focus on cuts to welfare had some mumbling that it was all a bit “nasty party”. Both the PM and the Chancellor’s speeches seemed to draw strength from Ed Miliband’s poor performance last week; the underlying Conservative message being that without a strong economy nothing can be achieved, least of all a thriving NHS, and this means austerity - a freeze on benefits and tax credits for two years and a further £25 billion of cuts in the next parliament. Is this the right strategy? Lord Ashcroft doesn’t think so, saying as he unveiled his latest polls on the first night of Conference that, “The prospect of more austerity is the biggest single barrier to voting Conservative next year.”
However White Dee at a Policy Exchange event supported welfare reform and even said that Iain Duncan Smith had ‘completely hit the nail on the head’ – an unexpected endorsement, perhaps there’s a role as a Government ‘Tsar’ coming on? Conference ended with a more traditional pre-election tactic – a clear elucidation of a tax cutting agenda.
The Conservatives certainly won the conference battle – the headlines at the end providing a satisfying contradiction to those at the beginning with the Daily Mail purring about a ‘Real Tory premier’ - now they need to make sure it has some impact on the electoral war.