The Tories are back in business

By Luke Pollard

I dislike Tory conferences. I feel out of place and unwelcome. This feeling was noticeably reinforced as I walked out of the security tent outside Birmingham’s ICC and was pointed at from across the square accompanied by the cry of “Oi, socialist!”. Welcome to Conservative Party Conference indeed. Clearly we are not all in it together.

Unlike the Liberal Democrat and Labour conferences it took me a few days to really work out what the atmosphere was like in Birmingham. Taking the temperature of the party wasn’t helped by the rabbit warren feel of Birmingham’s ICC with corridors and split-level walkways all over the place. But just as Tory spinners had told us, this wasn’t a conference of smug celebration nor was it a moaning shop for the right wing angry at the Tories’ failure to win an outright majority. Birmingham was billed as a serious conference and to be fair, it delivered a serious atmosphere.

I’d love to make some partisan points here about the prevalence of double-breasted pin-stripe suited gentlemen and champagne-quaffing toffs but that would be unkind. Certainly they were there, and in some numbers, albeit sipping the bubbly more discreetly than a few years ago, but that wasn’t what was most apparent. There was a single message: the Tories are back in government and they are serious about getting on with the job. And that job is all about cutting the public sector back, some zealously, some apologetically – but all of them cutting.

If you ignore the ripping off of the Adidas three stripe logo stuck to every available surface and the painfully repetitive strapline ‘together for the national interest’ – a series of words barely mentioned anywhere other than in DC’s speech, this conference was supposed to be slick. The new branding looks good, and the union flag Tory tree logo works nicely as an advertising device. So far, so good.

The Tories may well be back but, unfortunately for them, they’re not as good at it as the image they present suggests. As nicely put by Alastair Campbell, the announcements from this conference seemed hurried and botched, amateur in their delivery and haphazard in their nature. This isn’t the slick media-friendly machine that Andy Coulson normally runs, but then again, he does have other things on his mind. Indeed, Cameron’s interviews smacked more of defence of an ill-thought through policy on benefit cuts than the proud statements of a man with a plan.

There’s a danger here for Labour. David Cameron is media-friendly with a good narrative, an attractive wife and an adorable baby. He is presented as someone who is putting the needs of his country before that of his party. Sounds good – the problem is it isn’t entirely true. His wife is indeed beautiful, so I have been told, and his baby is adorable but he is not the ‘father of the nation’, some kind of 21st century benign leader and he must not be allowed to be portrayed as one by a pliant media. Nor must he be allowed to fuse nation and party into one single cause as Thatcher attempted to do.

Take the child benefit cuts as an example: Cameron rode to the rescue of Osborne’s botched announcement. Osborne screwed up and the Prime Minister reassured Middle England it was all going to be ok – a spoonful of Cameron sugar will help the Osborne medicine go down. It wasn’t George Osborne’s botched announcement he had to rescue, he was behind it too, but that might not be apparent.

What can Labour learn from Tory conference? Three things:

Firstly, the Tories’ media machine was not as slick as it has been in the past. Cutting benefits went down well amongst delegates in Brum, and there was some sympathy for it from those Labour people in attendance I noticed too, but the manner of its release was where our analysis should also focus. Pushed out hurriedly, the story became just as much who knew about its release (apparently not the Home Secretary) than the substance of the policy – just as well as that wasn’t very clear either.

Secondly, the membership hasn’t been transformed by the election win. Like the Liberal Democrats two weeks before, this conference was overwhelmingly white, posh to middle class, retired or really too young to be wearing cords and tweed. As one delegate controversially put it “the only brown faces here are the ones serving the Tories coffee.” A wee bit unfair perhaps but they’re hardly a microcosm of modern Britain that’s for sure.

Finally, we all need to understand that the Tories mean business. This wasn’t a conference of a party intending on making a big blast and then fade away, this was a conference to cement the foundations of government and to build for victories in the future. Now they’re in power, they’re not going to roll over and give it up easily. It is tempting for Labour activists to believe all we need to do is not screw up between now and the election and Tory cuts will drive Ed Miliband into Number 10. Labour has no pre-determined right to win the next election and what I’m taking away from Birmingham this week is that this lot aren’t going to surrender easily. If we want it, we’ve got to fight for it – the Tories will.