I made my annual pilgrimage to the Tory party conference last week and, while my brief 24-hour sojourn was quite enjoyable – largely because of a small private dinner that our president and I held for some of our political and member contacts – I was left wondering just what the purpose of this annual bun fight was actually meant to be.
Once upon a time, party conferences were about deciding party policies; the big picture issues that the card-carrying members really cared about. Of course, the party leadership never considered itself bound by conference decision, but there at least seemed to be an assumption that what happened in Blackpool or Brighton or Bournemouth did actually matter.
Now, the formal sessions are carefully stage-managed so that not even the questions are spontaneous and there is a clearly scripted pause after each statement of party dogmas to allow for the ritualistic round of applause. It was left to London mayor Boris Johnson to bring a bit of life to Birmingham – although I am not sure if the content of his speech constituted policy!
But the really big change has been the takeover by the corporate and lobbying world that see the conferences as the opportunity to get to ministers and MPs left unprotected and accessible by the absence of their civil servants. At last year’s Tory conference in Manchester, there were allegedly just 4,000 party members and 7,000 lobbyists and press.
The result is an extraordinary array of stands, pressure groups and fringe events ranging from major defence companies to the Newt Preservation Society of Brent (ok, so I made that one up, although I’d still like to know who exactly the chap in the bumble bee outfit handing out fliers outside the main hall was actually representing).
The ministers and shadow teams spend their time racing from one frantic 10-minute meeting to another and speaking at multiple fringe events every evening, to the extent that they barely know the time of day.
So why do we bother? Well, I suppose there is always the hope that a snatched 10 minutes of time (and we managed a good 45 minutes with a new ministerial appointee this year) will lead to a reconsideration of a policy or a promise to look at a particular problem. But as I have said on many occasions, quick promises of action made in the heat of the moment will only bear fruit if backed up by detailed briefing and long-term relationship-building with the relevant departments.
There is also undoubtedly an element of the lobby groups keeping up with each other – “if so and so is going, I had better go as well or I might miss something, or my members might think I’m not trying”.
However, I for one would not be at all sorry if the politicos decided that enough was enough and that, instead of this rather undignified scrum, conference in future was to be reserved for the party faithful. Unfortunately, that’s not likely to happen as these events must be massive earners for the parties. So, I guess I shall just have to grit my teeth, pick my lobbying targets carefully, make my 10 minutes count, and then ensure I have an early escape route planned.
