Manchester conference diary: Day one

Before the formal opening of the Conference we had, as usual, a meeting of the National Conservative convention. This was mostly an introduction to the week ahead, but it was a good session, including a speech from the party leader, Kemi Badenoch and a fraternal visit from former Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

The Conference was officially opened by Stewart Harper who is this year's conference chairman, He was followed by the party chairman Kevin Hollinrake MP, whose welcome to delegates included asking for a minute's silence for the victoms of Thursday's attacks.


Kevin introduced the following speaker, Matthew Syed, the Radio 4 and Sunday Times journalist, who had stood for Tony Blair's Labour party in 2001 but joined the Conservative party a couple of weeks ago. Here is a link to the piece I posted about his article a week ago in the Sunday Times explaining why he joined the Conservatives.

Matthew Syed in the Sunday Times on why he joined the Conservatives last week. 

Despite admitting that he had previously been a Labour candidate, and advising Conservatives that the party has to acknowledge it's past mistakes and by humble about our part in what has gone wrong with this country if we want to win the next election, Matthew got a standing ovation. 

I think that conservatives attending the conference were impressed with the honesty of his analysis of what has gone wrong with British politics and what needs to be done to put it right.

One person who seems to have been listening to him, or perhaps shares the same analysis, is Kemi Badenoch.

Her opening speech began with a ringing declaration of support for Britain's Jewish community following the ghastly atrocity on Thursday at a Synagogue in the very city wherehhin the conference is taking place.

Among other things she listed some of the important things that Conservative administrations achieved between 2010 and 2024 - and there were some important achievements - but said that we must also be open and honest and admit what we got wrong and show that we have listened, learned, and are determined to get those things right next time.

Conservative governments always used to stand for sound financial management and balancing the books. When we were elected at a time of disastrous financial crisis in 2010, that's what we did.

But under pressure in dealing with the pandemic and the impact of Russian invasion of Ukraine on energy costs towards the end of our time in office, there was a point when we lost sight of this essential principle.

Kemi promised that never again will the Conservatives promise to spend money without being clear where it will come from.

We must also acknowledge that we promised to control immigration and failed to do so. This week the party will be publishing plans which includes how we will make sure this does not happen again.

It's going to be an interesting conference!




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