CONSERVATIVE PARTY CONFERENCE 2017
Will Walden Managing Director and former Director of Communications to Boris Johnson
FAILURE TO LAUNCH “The test of a leader is how you respond when tough times come upon you.” Well that line from the Prime Minister proved truly prophetic today. True, this was never going to be an easy few days - post election, post Grenfell, post a summer of discontent, post Boris' Brexit interventions. But the Prime Minister arrived here on Saturday evening knowing that what she needed most of all was a conference where she set the direction and the tone - where she looked in charge or, at least, back in charge. Throughout the week, however hard you tried, a seemingly unavoidable feeling of inertia hung over conference. MPs muttered, associations and activists chuntered. Some Cabinet Ministers rounded on the Foreign Secretary. You'd have been forgiven for questioning whether this was really the party of government; because at times it didn't feel that way. When she took the stage in Manchester this lunchtime she had a chance to reverse the narrative. What happened next has, however unfairly, probably scuppered much chance of that. For those of you who didn't see it - and there can't be many of you - the Prime Minister was handed a P45 by a 'protester' who turned out to be a prankster, whilst struggling continually throughout her speech with a coughing fit. And to cap it all the stage set lettering behind her fell apart. Her voice was breaking, near broken or barely audible for much of the speech. Her husband looked crestfallen at times. When she left the stage she looked like she was just grateful it was over. Many will admire her pluck and her determination - she had apologised for being stiff in the campaign and then managed a pretty good unscripted gag when the Chancellor handed her a cough sweet - "I hope you noticed that Ladies and Gentleman, the Chancellor giving something away free". Cabinet Ministers are lining up to offer praise. Supportive newspapers may well frame this in terms of the brave PM, soldiering on. And there will rightly be searching questions about security. But most people I suspect will remember the moment – that the images that surround this speech are a metaphor for a leader who is weakened, whose authority, punctured in June, continues to drain away. Last night one of her most senior advisors told me honestly and touchingly "I wish you could see the speech - there's loads in it, it's really packed with content and policy announcements". This lunchtime that feels somewhat by the by. The Party had been lambasted all week by journalists for hollowing out conference -
poor, repetitive or non-existent policy announcements, no narrative, no direction they moaned. Here was a chance to change all that. She made pledges around affordable housing (an extra £2bn although without detail on timing), a mental health review, and a price cap on the domestic energy market (although OFGEM still need to have a say). Much of the rhetoric appeared moderate, outward looking. But the pledges, and the attacks on Jeremy Corbyn probably won't be on the front pages tomorrow. The faltering delivery, the cough and the P45 will be. In 24 hours things might just appear a little less febrile, but it was at times impossibly difficult to watch. It was painful. Yes she'd done 26 interviews yesterday but sympathy isn't a quality a Prime Minister needs or wants. She will get it in spades. The prankster - who should never have been allowed near her and has been arrested - will be dismissed as an idiot, but the metaphor stands. The uncomfortable truth is that Brand matters. Sheer dumb luck. It doesn't happen to you when you are on the up, it just doesn't. These type of things didn't happen to Tony Blair, or to David Cameron, (or if they did they rode them out with dexterity), and yet they did happen to Neil Kinnock (Brighton seafront), to Gordon Brown (Gillian Duffy), to Ed Miliband (the Ed Stone, the bacon sarnie). And now to Theresa May. Before she stood up I'd already written this: "Did you miss it? I wish I had!" That this lunchtime is almost certainly the prevailing view of many here. As Tory party activists, business delegates, a smattering of MPs, and every single Westminster lobby journalist streams away from Manchester in the next few hours they know ‘we are as we were’. Given what happened I suspect No 10 and Conservative Central Office wish even that were still true. The serious business of Brexit, a thin legislative agenda with no majority, and a budget lie ahead. Beyond that lies something more fundamental for Mrs May and the Tories. Membership falling, support among the under 45s tanking, and as yet no clear sense of response to the national mood – ‘are they listening, understanding and responding to us’. Despite all that, despite today’s woes, a challenge to her leadership in the middle of our EU extrication would be bloody and still seems very remote. Mrs May may be on notice, but then she knew that already.