My visit to Toryland
I’ve been a member of the Labour Party for 40 years and, in my younger days, between 1972-1983 I attended 12 consecutive Labour Party Conferences at various seaside venues. But this week was my first visit to a Conservative Party Conference and the venue was Manchester (actually my home town).
I was a speaker for Consumer Focus at a fringe meeting sponsored by T-Mobile and the CBI to discuss the Digital Economy. The meeting was well-attended and lively, so I enjoyed it.
But politically it was a strange place for me to be. There was a palpable sense among delegates and visitors that, in a matter of months, there will be a Conservative Government running Britain, but still a lack of clarity over what they would do in office – not least on the digital agenda – as opposed to what they object to about Labour Government policies.
October 11th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Do you not think that this “palpable” feeling among Conservatives is partly the traditional feeling of the opposition at an oncoming election which will mainly be decided by an electorate tired of a long term government? Whatever our economic situation, whatever “revelations” in the press, there is also the problem of disenchantment with the familiar, even if the opposition is unpalatable. As a traditional Labour Party supporter and public servant in local government I look on a Tory government with alarmed resignation. Having worked through the Thatcher years, can it be worse?