Ann Widdecombe's ludicrous attempt to crack down on casual use of cannabis may have delivered the final death blow to the credibility of this year's Tory conference, but it was already flagging before she got up to speak.
The succession of speeches by William Hague's undistinguished team of largely porters. unrecognised shadow ministers had been Tony Blair's most encouraging news since before the fuel protests.
The heady few days in which the Tories had appeared to be ahead of Labour in a few opinion polls had already melted into memory, as the party's deep divisions over Europe and its lack of talent or direction had floated back to the surface, with Kenneth Clarke brushing aside Portillo's economic analysis as "blithering nonsense". Just as Blair has picked up and hardened some of the key Thatcherite policies - notably on law and order, privatisation and asylum seekers - the Conservative tactic has become one of seeking to outflank Blair... to the right!
The upshot has been a succession of bizarre and inconsistent policies, ranging from Hague's nationalist mantra on the need to keep the pound, to Liam Fox's monumentally unpopular call for an expansion of private medical insurance.
The hostility to the Euro and to all things European has helped confirm the Conservative Party's almost Thatcher: model for Blair total isolation from the bulk of its traditional big business sup- people's personal lives".
This year's conference exhibition in Bournemouth was patronised by fewer companies families", and cut red tape. than even the Liberal Democrats. There were iust harder line against drugs, 75 stalls - 13 of them inhabited by various Party stands. Even Railtrack, which has done so side landladies and retired well from Tory privatisation, did not bother to take a stall.
Talk of a major revival in the party's fortunes are greatly an area of law and order exaggerated. So too is the claim that a new "caring Conservatism" - largely stolen than the Tories. from US Presidential hopeful George W Bush - is emerging as the party's philosophy. Michael Portillo's subsequently explained his well- pletely out of touch. rehearsed breast-beating speech about the need for "toleration" as the natural extension of his neo-liberal economic views (small taxes, small government") to the social sphere "don't interfere in berth this year.
It had to be opposed. John Monks addressed the conference, in a lather, to propose a General Council statement and to "to express the full support of Britain's trade unions Government's ensure the immediate and full resumption of oil deliveries". Bullying He went on: "What we have seen this week in this country has gone well beyond democratic protest.... This is no legitimate protest against an employer. It is an attack Of course there were tradi- on a democratic government tional Tory populist pledges to - a clear and crude attempt to slash taxes on "hard working bully the government into a change of course.
Widdecombe's demand for a "Across the country today these protests are threatening cheered to the echo by the vital public services.... And assembled conference of sea- what about the factories that are laying. colonels, was intended to be public transport grinding to following triumphantly along a halt, the life of the nation is the same populist line, finding being strangled?
"We call on Britain's trade where New Labour has not unionists to work normally (yet) taken a more brutal line and take no part in this bosses' blockade.... let It fell - just as John Major's tell you one thing today. You crazy "back to basics" idea fell will not, and should not, shift - because Widdecombe and this government - any govher ageing party are so com- ernment - with bully-boy blockades and civil disrupAs Hague struggles to repair tion. massive damage and refloat his "Make your case peacefully floundering party once again, by all means. This is the great there will be few business lead- strength of any democratic ers who regret their decision society. But these blockades to give Bournemouth a wide are not blockades on fuel.
They are blockades on our
Outlook BR