The conference season is over (apart from the SNP, next week).
What have we learned?
These are the key messages to the electorate from the Coalition Parties and those in Opposition:
CONSERVATIVES (BIRMINGHAM):
1) Kill burglars with your bare hands, or knives, or guns, or hammers
2) Do everything from now on in the same that way we did the Olympics (and Paralympics)
3) Give rich people more money
4) Build a new airport
5) Sack the Chief Whip / Elect Boris Johnson as party leader (eventually)
7) Osborne can't count
Cameron closed the Tory conference with a speech in which he praised the following people:
a) Boris Johnson for, well, being Boris Johnson and for not sticking the knife in too far when entertaining the troops the previous day at conference.
b) The Armed Forces for their work in illegal wars and saving the Olympic Games from a potential disaster brought about by the CEO of G4S (the smaller one of the Chuckle Brothers)
c) The Queen for being just lovely and smashing and "...the best Head of State in the World..." (cue standing ovation)
d) Theresa May for buying Abu Hamza's plane ticket
e) Michael Gove for creating hundreds of little Etons on sink estates
f) His father for being a legless, hard-working alcoholic (I think that's what he said)
g) John Major for running away from the circus to be an accountant
h) Justine Greening for inocculating 130,000 African children during the course of the conference
i) Himself, for vetoeing a European Treaty that was passed anyway
j) Everyone that had anything at all to do with making London 2012 so brilliant but especially Ellie Simmonds for letting him give her a medal
k) IDS for doing really complicated sums to do with pensions
l) George Osborne for something to do with the deficit, and doing it with 'grit'.
m) Ken Livingstone...for the purpsoes of making a cheap joke
There were notable ommissions. There was no mention of his coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats. Neither was there any praise (faint, damning or otherwise) for either of the party's enforcers, Andrew Mitchell and Michael Green...sorry...Grant Shapps, both of whom are likely to be collecting their P45s shortly. And, for the first time I can remember, a party leader's address to conference did not menntion the police. Perhaps that's because they're plebs.
Cameron admitted that his back-story was not a 'hard luck' one, and he told us that he was "...not here to defend privilege, but to spread it..." So privilege will no longer be the preserve of the rich, but just a preserve, to be spread liberally. What with Labour promising that "...working class parents can have middle class children..." and the Tories spreading privilege around like so much jam (tomorrow), the promises of egalitarianism from all of our politcians are as impossible to deliver as peace in the Middle East.
Then there were some people for whom Cameron reserved nothing but opprobrium:
"Slackers": In Gove's brave new world of free schools and academies, there will be no room for slackers. If you don't wear the unforms, submit to discipline and become fluent in Latin by age six, then you'll be to blame for the failure of this Aspiration Nation. Slackers will become fags, have their arse-cracks used as muffin-toasters and be forced to scrub the quad clean with toothbrushes, probably.
The "Yes But No" people: These callous, more-than-my-job's-worth arseholes are ruining Britain and stopping its rise. Bureacratic nimbys...that's what they are and they will be stopped and replaced with "Yes" people!
Alex Salmond: Cameron told the conference that he was going to see Salmond on 15 Oct to sort out the referendum on Scottish independence and to tell the Little Scotlander how silly he was being, trying to tear up the 1707 Act of Union and create two nations instead of the "One Nation" that both Cameron and Miliband want to govern.
To be fair to the Tories, the conference messages were, in the end, quite clear:
Cameron closed the Tory conference with a speech in which he praised the following people:
a) Boris Johnson for, well, being Boris Johnson and for not sticking the knife in too far when entertaining the troops the previous day at conference.
b) The Armed Forces for their work in illegal wars and saving the Olympic Games from a potential disaster brought about by the CEO of G4S (the smaller one of the Chuckle Brothers)
c) The Queen for being just lovely and smashing and "...the best Head of State in the World..." (cue standing ovation)
d) Theresa May for buying Abu Hamza's plane ticket
e) Michael Gove for creating hundreds of little Etons on sink estates
f) His father for being a legless, hard-working alcoholic (I think that's what he said)
g) John Major for running away from the circus to be an accountant
h) Justine Greening for inocculating 130,000 African children during the course of the conference
i) Himself, for vetoeing a European Treaty that was passed anyway
j) Everyone that had anything at all to do with making London 2012 so brilliant but especially Ellie Simmonds for letting him give her a medal
k) IDS for doing really complicated sums to do with pensions
l) George Osborne for something to do with the deficit, and doing it with 'grit'.
m) Ken Livingstone...for the purpsoes of making a cheap joke
There were notable ommissions. There was no mention of his coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats. Neither was there any praise (faint, damning or otherwise) for either of the party's enforcers, Andrew Mitchell and Michael Green...sorry...Grant Shapps, both of whom are likely to be collecting their P45s shortly. And, for the first time I can remember, a party leader's address to conference did not menntion the police. Perhaps that's because they're plebs.
| Pleb Welcoming Committee at Downing Street for the Chief Whip... |
Then there were some people for whom Cameron reserved nothing but opprobrium:
"Slackers": In Gove's brave new world of free schools and academies, there will be no room for slackers. If you don't wear the unforms, submit to discipline and become fluent in Latin by age six, then you'll be to blame for the failure of this Aspiration Nation. Slackers will become fags, have their arse-cracks used as muffin-toasters and be forced to scrub the quad clean with toothbrushes, probably.
The "Yes But No" people: These callous, more-than-my-job's-worth arseholes are ruining Britain and stopping its rise. Bureacratic nimbys...that's what they are and they will be stopped and replaced with "Yes" people!
Alex Salmond: Cameron told the conference that he was going to see Salmond on 15 Oct to sort out the referendum on Scottish independence and to tell the Little Scotlander how silly he was being, trying to tear up the 1707 Act of Union and create two nations instead of the "One Nation" that both Cameron and Miliband want to govern.
To be fair to the Tories, the conference messages were, in the end, quite clear:
- The Queen is lovely
- The Olympics were lovely too...
- ...And the country is great...indeed, it's the "greatest country in the world"
- If you want everything to stay lovely and great then vote Tory
| Boris:"If you don't stand aside and let me be the leader, I'll rip your heart out with a silver spoon..." Dave: "Coleus! Velim caput tuum devellere deinde in confinium gulae cacare..." |
LABOUR (MANCHESTER):
1) Ed Miliband can speak for over an hour without notes (or policies), and is very happy in his geeky, state-educated skin.
2) Tories are all rich bastards that line their own pockets with money stolen from pensioners and they get richer because Dave writes them all cheques, personally.
3) Only Labour can save / keep / protect the NHS
4) Ed Balls is a bit cuddlier than he used to be (but only a little bit, and let's remember what the start point was, to be fair) and is convinced that we can borrow our way out of austerity
5) Er...
2) Tories are all rich bastards that line their own pockets with money stolen from pensioners and they get richer because Dave writes them all cheques, personally.
3) Only Labour can save / keep / protect the NHS
4) Ed Balls is a bit cuddlier than he used to be (but only a little bit, and let's remember what the start point was, to be fair) and is convinced that we can borrow our way out of austerity
5) Er...
The conference of the party of opposition is always going to be different from that of the party of power. Ed Miliband had one mission for Manchester and that was to place himself firmly at the head of his party and he achieved that, along with rattling the coalition, slightly. The next two years are critical for Labour if they are gain a majority in 2015.
| The Eds - Keeping bromance alive |
LIBERAL DEMOCRATS (Somewhere else...can't remember now):
1) Make apologetic videos
2) Organise smaller venue for the 2015 conference to accommodate their MPs. One hotel room should just about do it...and one taxi for the delegates.
UKIP (Also in Birmingham):
1) We're all mad and we don't care...doo-da...doo-da / The French all smell and dye their hair...doo-da...doo-da / The Germans want to be in charge...doo-da...doo-da / To stop them, vote for Nige Farage...doo-da, doo-da, day!
2) Repeat No. 1, ad nauseam...
UKIP (Also in Birmingham):
1) We're all mad and we don't care...doo-da...doo-da / The French all smell and dye their hair...doo-da...doo-da / The Germans want to be in charge...doo-da...doo-da / To stop them, vote for Nige Farage...doo-da, doo-da, day!
2) Repeat No. 1, ad nauseam...
| Nigel Farage empties the European Parliament...again |
