Analytical rant: Conference season 2004
28 Sep 2004 by Paul Davies
As Gordon Brown belligerently bellows out his proper-lefty-not-like-that-heathen-Tony plans for the next vast wastage of public money; as Michael Howard attempts to remind the country that he and his party do still exist; and as Charles Kennedy gets all over-excited that the growing proportion of the electorate that are as confused with the whole business as he is will gather round and vote for the ginger Scot, one could be forgiven for thinking that an election is on the way. And as the nervous gestures of each party's main people show, it could be rather close.It's all very exciting stuff. Cut away the spin and the short-termism however, and you may find yourself asking: 'Do any of them have a clue what they are doing?' The crude answer is of course they do – they're politicians – they always know what they are doing, namely trying to increase their share of the collective power. Such brusqueness does not, however, help with the unenviable task of making sense of it all. To this end, therefore, we have to dig a little deeper.
The middle of party conference season can offer a good glimpse of the grounds on which the next election shall be fought, if one can successfully untangle the policy from the platitudes.
The Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth last week was centred on unsurprising ground. Alongside the usual policies of scrapping tuition fees, replacing council tax and clamouring for the country to take them seriously, the main article on Kennedy's agenda was Iraq. The Liberal Democrats have seized the opportunity the much maligned war presented to increase their standing among the populace. An improved showing come May is to be expected, but even Charlie must know his extreme optimism is slightly misplaced. Within five years, the Liberal support will most likely be returned to its knitted-jumper-wearing hard core.
Keen to distance itself from the 'old' war in Iraq and the nagging questions over weapons of mass destruction, 'New' Labour has announced its 'New' War. No longer are we at war with Iraq, the enemy is now international terrorists, based, handily enough, in Iraq. Those in charge of troop manoeuvres probably couldn't believe their luck.
With the question of the war out of the way, Labour has been able to try its luck at returning to its formerly unelectable ground of wooing the union 'paymasters' while whacking out the usual spiel about how much money is going to pour into public services - only this time we will see an improvement, honest. With Alan Milburn in place to make sure Gordon Brown doesn't get above his station; citing the need for the party to do more than simply "shouting louder and louder", the path is clear for the Prime Minister to concentrate on how best to bend the truth to his ever-more-doubting public.
As for the Tories, they're still struggling to come up with some new policies since they lost their old ones to Labour over the last decade. With this in mind, expect next week's party conference to attack and vilify others more than it champions itself.
