What is the point of party conferences? It’s a question plenty of political hacks are asking right now. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Conservatives all gather for their respective annual set-pieces. The planning has been more meticulous than ever; the delivery of speeches more polished, the media coverage now at saturation point. And yet two rather important things have been missing: ordinary party members, and public interest.
What we witnessed this year, according to one rather gloomy MP, is nothing short of the death of the party conference.
It’s hardly surprising. In the old days, the point of conference season was to give the footsoldiers a chance to have their say – to engage in fierce debate and to help set policy. For Labour and the Conservatives at least, those days are long gone. At the modern party conference, the image-makers leave almost nothing to chance. Real debates have been replaced with airbrushed, television-friendly ‘discussions’ – usually chaired by an achingly on-message minister or shadow minister – in which one or two councillors might get the chance to ask carefully-vetted questions. And that’s if they are lucky.
And why? Because disagreement within a party is now seen as the biggest political sin of all. Just look at the story of the Conservative conference: a row between Theresa May and Ken Clarke over a cat. Of course it’s a genuine story whenever two cabinet ministers fall out over policy. But this wasn’t about policy. It was about the facts of a legal judgement – and, of course, that cat.
Senior politicians tend to blame the media for this sorry state of affairs. We are, they say, obsessed with stories of division and so-called ‘gaffes’. As a result debates have been neutered, and speeches planned right down to the colour and pattern of every shirt and tie. But it’s a vicious circle, and the politicians must take their share of the blame. If there is no policy debate, no free discussion, no prospect of deviation from an agenda and message set months in advance – what else is the media supposed to discuss? In such a flat and barren landscape, molehills really can look like mountains.
The Conservative conference in Manchester was an odd affair. The absence of party members was obvious all around the fringe. Questions were routinely asked not by Tory councillors, but by representatives of charities, companies non-governmental organisations and pressure groups who had paid large sums to be present. There were empty seats in the main hall for David Cameron’s speech. The rush to leave Manchester when he finished speaking led to a log-jam at the gates.
You can’t blame them. This wasn’t an invitation for them to contribute policy, but rather to applaud speeches about how the policy wouldn’t change. They weren’t participants. They weren’t even the audience – the television cameras were. No; they were props. The same was essentially true of the Labour conference in Liverpool.
All this could be justified if the public somehow gained. But do the voters really care? Conference season had minimal impact on the polls. Manchester itself may have benefited greatly from having the Conservatives in town – to the tune of £27.4m, according to one estimate – but were the people really engaged? The talk on the streets was of rings of steel and road closures. Them and us. Them behind their airport-style security and armed guards; us left outside.
And that is a shame. Politicians routinely talk about how they want to use new technology to make themselves more accessible. Most are now on Twitter and quite a few have blogs. Good for them. But it is engagement entirely on their terms; on the internet, you can simply ignore things, and people, who ask awkward and unexpected questions. Voters aren’t stupid. MPs can tweet all they want, but political apathy is still at an all-time high. If Twitter is simply a new medium for political types to have closed-circle conversations, that won’t change.
Party conferences are a chance to engage, too. And yet you won’t see a prime minister, or opposition party leader, holding a huge public question and answer session in Albert Square or the town hall. Pitch that idea to their coterie of press officers, special advisors and image-makers and you’d be laughed out of town. Too uncontrolled; too risky, with no identifiable political gain. Suggesting politics itself might be the winner would sound hopelessly naïve. These are days when even politicians’ ‘real life’ outside the bubble is controlled and spun. I doubt it was a lucky coincidence that a photographer happened to be present when David Cameron ran past the canals of Castlefield on an early-morning run.
And so we go on, trapped in the circle: politicians, media and public alike, each pushed further apart rather than pulled together. A game of cat-and-mouse, if you like, that does no one any favours. But which is which, how has it happened, and how exactly do we get out?
Now that’s a debate about a cat worth having.
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Brilliant article. I wonder which party is going to be the first to call a halt to these expensive PR sessions? I don't think they have the courage.
i have no problem with parties having conferences,however not one penny of tax payers money should go towards the cost of policing these events, the parties should be billed for security costs
lets have a jolly on expenses, we pay in the long run.
About time you had a shave and changed that picture Dave.
There is no reason for conferences unless the parties pay for EVERYTHING themselves! Parties,when you think,are really no different to trades unions-------- members,contributions,loyalty,policies etc,so they AND unions should py for their own jollies,just like a private company does. I bet the CBI pay for their own annual p-- up!
Conferences are only a platform for lies and brainwashing the voters. Hitler did well out of his 'conferences 'though!
Problem is Dave is that Political Party Conferences are a huge fundraiser for all three parties. Lobbyists pay big money and all party's are not going to give that up, nor the revenue streams generated by delegates.
Media coverage of party conferences has reached saturation point for what is mainly one big talking shop. As a Lib Dem, I do believe that they are now the only party to have genuine debates on policy - a look at the amendments to the NHS Bill prove this (Whether people deem the changes to be far enough is a moot point) Problem with the Lib Dems is that the Parliamentary Party can still ride roughshod over the views of the conference, illustrated by the tuition fees debacle.
Party Conferences also provide good training opportunities for party workers. A chance to share best practice - so they are very useful in that capacity. I do however, agree that they are becoming increasingly irrelevant to the wider public.
Apart from a spike in news coverage, it's difficult to find a relevance for them beyond internal fund-raising, morale etc. Nick Clegg's speech was deliberately antagonistic towards Labour, Cameron's speech was notable for not mentioning Milliband (E) and Milliband's was notable for attacking Tony Blair and I've not even mentioned the cat on the hot tin roof! Not a good precis of the party conference season!
If you want to have an excruciatingly contrived debate about a cat, you're too late, that's so last week!
Also, whilst I am at it, the cost of policing party conferences is astronomical. I often used to put Freedom of Information Requests asking the Home Office how much they spent. Answers came back in the millions - basically the Home Office will pay the money back to Police Authorities affected via a special grant. Now that the Lib Dems are in Government, it means that the Home Office are meeting the security costs of ALL THREE Conferences (Six per year in total) - thus since 2010, the cost of policing conferences will have gone up roughly by a third.
I mentioned in the previous post that these events are huge fundraisers for political parties. Why they can't meet some, or all of the security costs is beyond me. Will any political party put their head above the parapet and call for this? You bet your bottom dollar they won't because they are '...all in this together!' In times of austerity and times of increasing irrelevance - it's time to stop using tax payer's money to help run party conferences. RANT OVER! (Hopefully should be based in Macclesfield now)
David, As someone who attended the Labour Conference this year I can partly agree and mentioned this in my delegates report. In my part of the hall the Q&A that Ed Miliband held was very popular although I accept that inviting the general public in needs more work. I think that the inclusion of supporters is a good idea and there were Labour observers here in France for the Primaires held last Sunday and again this Sunday. Around 2 1/2 million people participated in the vote and it is being hailed as the way forward. The French can teach us a thing or two as well. I was in charge of the electronic pen that transmitted the results through to HQ immediately. It certainly makes counts in tht UK look 19th Century.
David, I agree to a certain extent especially as I spent some time at Conference in the past trying to get resolutions on the agenda in the 80's. This time, however, in Liverpool as a Labour International delegate the most interesting event for me was the Q&A session held by Ed Miliband. My part of the hall seemed to agree. I did attend one of the seminar sessions and that gave an opportunity for a closer discussion on policy. The one I attended was Transport and Housing and the relevant Shadow ministers were very open. More involvement of a broader audience is certainly the prevailing idea for Ed Miliband and observers are looking at the primaires experiment here in France. Around 2 1/2 million people voted in the first round of elections for the Parti Socialiste presidential elections last Sunday. We could learn something from this process not least the use of electronic pens which enabled the counting stations to transmit the result immediately to HQ.