Gathering storm

The most important round of party conferences is under way. Impressive shows of unity or conversely knock-down drag-out fights will set the tone for the long run-up to the inevitable General Election
next May.

Clearly Gordon Brown, whose party conference began as EN went to press, faces the most difficult task. His recent leadership style once again got the party in a jittery mood ahead of the gathering in Brighton.

The criticism is two-fold. There is a widespread feeling that the Government has run out of steam, that there is a paralysis in relation to decision making. It’s more waiting for Gordon than waiting for Godot.

As the civil servants mentally prepare for a Conservative government, the lobbying industry is flocking to the Conservatives.

The other criticism is that when there is action, it is of the kneejerk variety. Brown’s response to the release of the Libyan Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi is a case in point. He remained silent over the Scottish Government’s decision to free the prisoner, although he found time to congratulate the England cricket team on their Ashes victory.

That raised questions about who is managing the Prime Minister’s media strategy. Staying silent completely in the middle of August is possibly defensible but to show you are in touch with the cricket but have nothing to say on the biggest diplomatic row of the year made Mr Brown look ridiculous.

Later, after a newspaper had revealed a lack of activity over getting compensation for victims of Libyan-supplied Semtex in Northern Ireland, Brown leapt into action and denied it had anything to do with the paper’s revelations. In office but not in power methinks.

The only hope for Brown lies with the economy. Some indicators point to a more rapid recovery than originally predicted, although I would be cautious about the prospects here in the North West. But by the time of the election campaign there is a prospect that the Prime Minister might be able to claim some credit if the green shoots are coming up with the spring bulbs.

The best tactic the Labour Party has employed recently is to try to depict the Tories as willing to cut public spending with ruthless relish whereas Labour would approach the task with care and reluctance. There’s not much evidence yet that voters are prepared to buy this folk memory of the nasty Tory party but there are few arrows in Gordon’s quiver.

So, is the first Tory conference in Manchester going to be a breeze for David Cameron? Probably not, although their corporate day was sold out in early August with 80 companies paying £1,000 a head for a chat with the Shadow Chancellor.

This will be Cameron’s fourth conference as leader so the novelty value has worn off. Labour has been so hapless since Tony Blair left that the danger of having peaked too soon must not be
underestimated.

There are also some grumblings in the party. At a parliamentary level they come from MPs who feel that in respect of the expenses row offending frontbenchers were let off lightly while Cameron came down like a ton of bricks on backbenchers.

There is also some disquiet in constituencies like Macclesfield and Congleton at the way in which the chance to be a parliamentary candidate is being potentially offered to people with five minutes’ experience. There’s a worry that the traditional mix of businesspeople and county grandees may be replaced by political researchers with no knowledge of the real world.

The Tories need a 6.9 per cent swing to gain a majority of just one. Tony Blair in 1997 is the only person to have achieved that since 1945, so there must be a chance of a hung parliament and the Liberal Democrats having a chair at the high table.

Their leader Nick Clegg has had a better second year of leadership partly because he’s not being permanently eclipsed by Vince Cable, who was never off our screens last autumn as the banking crisis reached its climax.

Their Bournemouth assembly was expected to maintain the swing to the right, manifested by their shelving of pledges on tuition fee abolition in preparation for an accommodation with the Conservatives. However, the big story from the conference was the “mansion tax” row – a swerve to the left and the brainchild of Vince Cable. Maybe not such a great year for Clegg after all.

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