WHN: (Conservative) Party time
WHN: (Conservative) Party time
The annual Conservative Party party rolled into Manchester and onto this week's podcast.
Photo by Sofiya Levchenko on Unsplash
On The Pod
Oh boy, the podcast is back with a bang! On the condition that we all agree here and now to define ‘bang’ as a 29 minute conversation about a political party conference and a research idea that was both wildly ambitious and entirely unreliable.
Sam’s dream concept of New Mills & New York made it to the airwaves, as both got a visit from WHN’s roving microphone to talk the fate of the world, the Tories and what we all have in common.
One, a small Peak District town famed as the home of Swizzles (Refreshers, Parma Violets and Drumsticks, nonetheless) and the slimmest of slim Conservative majorities. The other, a mid-to-large American urban area that, as far as we aware, has no comparable confectionary heritage BUT does also have the word ‘New’ in it’s title. You don’t get insight like this on the BBC.
Joining us this week…
Comedian and journalist Richard Wheatley joined us to sift through the goings on before we look ahead to Labour’s trip to Liverpool.
Richard is the host of The Friday Week, a topical show looking at the fun, more positive news of the week every Friday night at 7pm on Riverside Radio. You can listen via the Riverside Radio app and website or on smart speakers.
The Big Story: Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives - Something For Everyone?
A few days on and the dust has settled on what was either a fantastically wonderful or devastatingly depressing Conservative Party Conference, depending on who you ask.
A conference that, possibly, will be the Party’s last chance to gather before a likely 2024 election.
Last week, James wrote a piece in this very newsletter laying out what to watch out for in Manchester. Leadership jostlers, deflated moderates, Sunak himself, nostalgic cheerleaders and even the future of the party all did indeed make appearances, but the jaunt northwards also brought much more.
It brought a dancing Nigel Farage and the kind of party atmosphere rarely seen since locked down nights in Number 10. Arguably, it also brought more questions than answers.
The question I can’t escape is… what was the point?
Not of conference, I get it. It's about getting everybody who usually hang out in London to remember there are places other than London. A strategy that apparently this week caused senior figures to look around and go “ugh, no thank you, why would we need to get a new train to here”.
But really, what did success look like for all this? Was it a chance to win over voters or win over each other?
Suella Braverman relished the chance to show she’s more Suella Braverman than ever. Liz Truss redoubled her efforts at talking the growth talk, determinedly ignoring her short-lived attempt at walking the walk. A walk that was less a confident stride forward, more of a shoelaces-tied-together-walk-into-a-wall-somehow-set-fire-to-her-own-hair 44 days kind of stroll.
It felt like a time where brands were being reasserted as the leader stood on the stage and saying “It is time for a change. And we are it”.
After thirteen years in power, that might be a hard sell. If that is the message, then go for it. Conference is a chance to coordinate, to get on the same page and, especially before an election, decide what you’re really about.
The Conservatives are traditionally defined as the party of economic sense, freedom from big government and a mildly unnerving attachment to Margaret Thatcher.
Yet now it seems there’s a broader offering. Broad, even, to the point of contradictory.
It’s the party of free speech who clamp down swiftly on loyal supporter’s mild grumble.
The home of a thumping speech about not being bullied, but also the party of Dominic Raab. And Gavin Williamson. And ostracising trans women from the NHS.
The advocates of small government that are banning mobile phones in schools. Well, suggesting to teachers they should probably ban them, and maybe making it law if they don’t listen. That might not be an issue considering Teacher Tapp found in January that 80% of schools already have some form of phone ban in place.
Such fans of low intervention government, in fact, that smoking is also being banned. Not just outright, but incrementally to really squeeze all the juice possible from the bureaucratic lemon. If anything, it’s now made me want to take up smoking just to experience the thrill of eventually proving my age as a fifty-something man, desperately seeking validation and clinging to distant memories of my youth.
The whole conference was branded with the catchy slogan “Long-term decisions for a brighter future”. Cool, that makes sense. An admirable approach that we can get behind.
Hot on the heels of watering down environmental pledges, it turns out the headline long-term decision for a brighter future was to cancel the biggest infrastructure plan in a generation. Travelling to Manchester to, at first, refuse to answer questions about travel to Manchester and then ultimately delivering the bad news about it.
Or, as one Conservative voter told the podcast this week;
“I don't think they should let down the people down about the train.. I really think that is such a smack in the face for us up north.”
When recording for this week’s podcast, the vast majority of people we met on the streets of New Mills were undecided voters. There were people who wanted to vote for a party that stood for something and had a plan. No-one mentioned trans people and only one in the whole day took the approach of blind party loyalty.
They mentioned things like the environment or the high street. They wanted problems solved and were bored of attacks and blame. For many, both sides of the red and blue divide were valid options - they were just waiting to find out who had a better plan.
The visit was a day of being told people wanted to trust politicians, and action on things like the environment or public toilets in the local village. A conference that then attacked a non-existent meat tax from their opponents and reinforced conspiracy theories about 15-minute cities felt like a missed chance.
All eyes now turn to Liverpool to see if Labour can answer their own big questions like, are they really ready to govern? Do they have any policies? Will Keir Starmer dance on stage in classic Theresa May-esque style to show that he too has a wild, field-of-wheat-running, personality? Time will tell.
What Else Is Happening this week
While party conferences may have been getting most of the attention this week, more is going on in the world than a bunch of bonding bureaucrats.
Creativity flows from desperation, at least for one man in Cornwall.
Moon trip? Moon drip* more like. Prada are designing space suits.
Statues are here to stay, says new guidance. As long as they are properly explained.
*The best kind of joke is one you have to explain. Here’s a link, if you were wondering.