Manchester Diary: Day Three
I thought George Osborne was brilliant yesterday: back to Copeland for a meeting after his session. Returned to Manchester this morning.
Conference began with a "Back Boris" session, followed by a discussion on Crime and Home Affairs policy with ken Clarke and Theresa May.
The NIA Fringe meeting on Tuesday lunchtime about new nuclear build was extremely well supported with standing room only at the back. It was chaired by Lord Hutton (formerly a Labour cabinet minister and Cumbria MP as John Hutton) in his capacity as chairman of the NIA and excellent contributions from three speakers including energy minister Charles Hendry.
Support for nuclear new build within the Conservative party appears to have moved from strong to everwhelming with no voices of dissent raised at any of the fringe meetings I have attended: the only anti nuclear voice I have heard in Manchester has been one lone nutcase shouting at people outside the entrance to the conference secure area.
The afternoon featured a session on Children and Cities addressed by Greg Clarke and David "Two Brains" Willetts - who took a question from the President of NUS, something requiring some bravery on both sides.
I just imagine how many people in both the National Union of Students and the Conservative hierarchy would have had apolplexy if someone had allowed David Aaronovitch to put a question to Sir Keith Joseph at Conservative party conference while they were respectively President of NUS and the minister whose portfolio included Universities. (Calls on one side of "Sellout!" and on the other of "What's he doing here?") Though to be fair, I suspect David and Sir Keith would not have been among those who would have had any trouble with the idea.
He also pointed out that in it's first year the government has over-fulfilled the promise to create 50,000 new apprenticeships by actualy creating more than 100,000.
This was followed by a panel discussion on schools led by Michael Gove, and one on the NHS with Andrew Lansley. Both brought in a series of professionals and people involved with education and health respectively.
I thought as Michael Gove introduced his panel "Please God none of these people loses their job this year for daring to come and speak to us." Which did happen, totally unjustifiably, to a deputy head who made a brilliant speech to last year's conference. This time the education speakers were two heads, and a young student whose head teacher was one of the other speakers, so they'll probably all be OK.
The health session was particularly interesting. Andrew gave a very impressive list of acheivements, showing how the government's policy of protecting NHS spending in real terms while switching spending from Bureaucracy to front line services is paying dividends.
Since the coalition government took over the NHS employs 5,000 fewer managers and 1,500 more doctors.
Three quarters of a million more people have access to an NHS dentist
NHS waiting times have dropped slightly on average, and hospital acquired infection rates in the NHS in England are 27% down.
Real progress at a very difficult time
Conference began with a "Back Boris" session, followed by a discussion on Crime and Home Affairs policy with ken Clarke and Theresa May.
The NIA Fringe meeting on Tuesday lunchtime about new nuclear build was extremely well supported with standing room only at the back. It was chaired by Lord Hutton (formerly a Labour cabinet minister and Cumbria MP as John Hutton) in his capacity as chairman of the NIA and excellent contributions from three speakers including energy minister Charles Hendry.
Support for nuclear new build within the Conservative party appears to have moved from strong to everwhelming with no voices of dissent raised at any of the fringe meetings I have attended: the only anti nuclear voice I have heard in Manchester has been one lone nutcase shouting at people outside the entrance to the conference secure area.
The afternoon featured a session on Children and Cities addressed by Greg Clarke and David "Two Brains" Willetts - who took a question from the President of NUS, something requiring some bravery on both sides.
I just imagine how many people in both the National Union of Students and the Conservative hierarchy would have had apolplexy if someone had allowed David Aaronovitch to put a question to Sir Keith Joseph at Conservative party conference while they were respectively President of NUS and the minister whose portfolio included Universities. (Calls on one side of "Sellout!" and on the other of "What's he doing here?") Though to be fair, I suspect David and Sir Keith would not have been among those who would have had any trouble with the idea.
He also pointed out that in it's first year the government has over-fulfilled the promise to create 50,000 new apprenticeships by actualy creating more than 100,000.
This was followed by a panel discussion on schools led by Michael Gove, and one on the NHS with Andrew Lansley. Both brought in a series of professionals and people involved with education and health respectively.
I thought as Michael Gove introduced his panel "Please God none of these people loses their job this year for daring to come and speak to us." Which did happen, totally unjustifiably, to a deputy head who made a brilliant speech to last year's conference. This time the education speakers were two heads, and a young student whose head teacher was one of the other speakers, so they'll probably all be OK.
The health session was particularly interesting. Andrew gave a very impressive list of acheivements, showing how the government's policy of protecting NHS spending in real terms while switching spending from Bureaucracy to front line services is paying dividends.
Since the coalition government took over the NHS employs 5,000 fewer managers and 1,500 more doctors.
Three quarters of a million more people have access to an NHS dentist
NHS waiting times have dropped slightly on average, and hospital acquired infection rates in the NHS in England are 27% down.
Real progress at a very difficult time
Comments
Having checked up after seeing your comment, as far as I can tell Mr Soini was not in Manchester as an official guest of the Conservative party, but to attend a fringe meeting organised by the Bruges group.
There are literally hundreds of fringe meetings at or outside any party conference, many of them organised by bodies which are not in any way connected to the party concerned but are there to lobby it. I cannot remember a Conservative party conference at which I have not met at least one member of the Labour or Lib/Dem parties who was there in a professional lobbying capacity or for a fringe meeting: this year for instance I met Lord Hutton who was here as chairman of the NIA.
The Bruges group, which invited Soini, is not an official part of the Conservative party.