Final thoughts on the Conference season

Greater Manchester Police and the large number of officers drafted in from other forces did an excellent job of protecting the Conservative conference this year. There was much less trouble than in 2015.

Nevertheless I think this passage from the Economist's "Bagehot" about his visit to Conservative conference is worth quoting in full, and I apologise for the use of language which I would not normally permit on this blog.

"The first thing I saw on arriving was a large army of angry demonstrators controlled by a smaller army of police, some with horses, a few with machine guns.

One demonstrator greeted me with the refrain “fuck off Tory scum”.

When I explained that I was a journalist he modified his greeting to “fuck off Tory media scum”.

Several delegates were spattered with spit.

It is a fact worth contemplating, particularly in discussions of online vitriol, that the only people who object to the very existence of their opponents, and are willing to express that objection in the form of sometimes violent protests, are on the left."

You can read the full article here.

Comments

Jim said…
The only real things I will remember are the Jeremy corbyn chants. and the fact the PM stood up to do a speech, was handed a P45 in the middle of it, then she lost her voice and the set fell to bits.

Hardly what you would call inspiring stuff really.
6:21 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
Don't know which news channel you were watching but sadly quite a few of them seemed far more interested in reporting that kind of trivia than the rather more important policies, love them or hate them, which both parties actually announced.
8:30 pm
Jim said…
It was not the best PM speech in the world though was it. Not a lot of substance in there to be honest. Certainly not enough on Brexit either. Very disappointing really.
12:37 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
There was quite a bit of substance which our beloved media could not be bothered to report on because they seem to have the bizarre idea that their viewers would find the fact that the PM had a coughing fir was more interesting than her proposals on housing of student debt.
12:21 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the...
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more