This year’s conference isn’t like other years – for me or for the wider Tory party membership. I dutifully attend the Tory conference each year and I can only describe it as being like Christmas for Tories.
Yes, there have been years when it’s all gone a bit wrong with rain, God-awful accommodation and questionable speeches (read Liz Truss). However, in the main, I have a great time with people I know are – in general – going to have a similar outlook on life to me.
This year, however, is a bit different as I am not going with the sole intention of having fun, but to work. So immediately, the vibe for me on arrival was a bit different. Not one of relaxation, but of getting me getting my head around the task at hand. Still though… the atmosphere in those first few hours rattled me.
It felt like any life had been sucked out of the air by Nigel Farage himself as a few diehard members rattled around the huge conference hall. Cracking on with the job of chatting to as many grassroots members as possible, I sidled up to a table of two delegates to chat.
“Gosh it’s a bit depressing this, isn’t it?!”.
They both looked at me warily but couldn’t help but crumble and admit the stark reality. Lachlan Bruce, 32, works in public affairs for a charity and is a Conservative councillor in East Lothian.
He said: “It is very quiet at the moment – I am hoping that the conference will liven up. I am hoping we see what direction the party is going to be going in going forward and up to the General Election – particularly with the growing threat of Reform.”
Cool. I wasn’t the only misery-guts thinking that the atmosphere was as dead as a dodo. Moving into the bar at Manchester’s Midland Hotel – which is where all the hubbub usually is – I was shocked to see just a clutch of people rather than the usual throng. Having witnessed first-hand the reverie of conferences gone by, I was astonished. What’s happened!
I chatted to a friend – who is a councillor – who summed the mood up precisely.
He said: “It’s not like a wake – that was last year. This is like the reading of the will – only true family members show up and it’s the serious business of dividing up the family silver.”
I got back to my hotel and checked in. I hammered out my notes and decided to make my way back to the conference centre to meet with friends. And, thank the Lord, the mood had lifted. It was back to catching up with old friends and meeting new ones over warm white wine whilst dissecting what was going right – but mostly wrongly.
The infamous Northern Reception was perhaps a little less packed than usual, but it was still fun and, like me, I suppose, there is now a very real sense of getting on the job at hand. Yes, there are laughs, gossip and all the dodgy free wine you can handle but every chat circled back to the same thing: how do we stop Reform eating us alive?