Hammond’s eyes peered out like two angry oysters
feels for the activists who had to endure the Foreign Secretary
JUST outside the conference hall, in the throng of lobbying schmoozers, is a shooting gallery. Two Orthodox Jewish chaps were queuing, eager to have a blast with some firearms. Next to that – a massage parlour. Perfectly respectable, please. This isn’t the old, bottom-goosing Tory party.
Conference-goers (a preponderance of young men in suits) sit on stools and lean forward, heads wrapped in flannels. Soothing music is played while nurses, smelling of herby ointment, administer shoulder rubs. You need a pummelling after speeches by Lord Feldman, Philip Hammond and Michael Fallon. Adults stagger out in a daze, beaten to submission by stultifying dronery. A masseuse pats them and purrs ‘there, there – your suffering is over’. Lord Feldman is chairman of the party. When I started reporting Tory conferences in the late 1980s the chairman was also a Lord Feldman, name of Basil, quiffed brother of Fenella Fielding. This new Feldman (Andrew) is less ornate. He seemed to have a cold yesterday and kept sniffing. Give that boy a hanky!
He told activists that they were too old, too rural and dying too fast. That was a little harsh seeing as they’d just won an election. Being Tories, they swallowed it.
We were shown a victory film. Twice. The most popular bit was the announcement of Ed Balls’s defeat. Yet the conference audience was not in a mood for crowing. They were terribly flat. Only Michael Gove, at the end of this f i rst afternoon, extracted much response – and even for Right-wing pin-up Gove it was like stirring porridge.
Things began with a brief speech by Steve Bell, a party activist for 50 years. Self-declared former East End barrow boy Mr Bell could, from the look and sound of him, have been Alan Sugar’s older brother. Better house-trained than Sugarlump, though.
The air throbbed with the overhead helicopters which were filming trade union protesters outside. Screaming Lefties were buzzing eggs at the Tories – with enough accuracy to make them decent cricketers. One of the leading comrades of the Daily Mirror was denounced as ‘Tory scum’. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt was jostled, too. They recognised him?
Inside, the party faithful kept being told to ‘be proud’. Be proud we support Nato. Be proud we are building aircraft carriers. Be proud you didn’t slide off your seat to the floor while Defence Secretary Fallon was boring your hooters off.
Foreign Secretary Hammond peered at the autocue with two shrivelled, dark-rimmed eyes that could have been peevish oysters. We were shown a video in which Bill Gates, in a Kermit the Frog voice, thanked the Tories for supporting overseas aid. Mr Gates may be the world’s richest man but he still buys his beige sweaters from Edinburgh Woollen Mills, plainly.
Enter Justine Greening, International Development Secretary, to proclaim the strategic wisdom of aid. I happen to agree with her but found my attention distracted by her spidery eye-lashes, killer lipstick and a hairdo so helmeted by lacquer, the ozone layer over Manchester must be sporting one heck of a dent.
Mr Gove made the best speech – and not for the expected reason that he dished up ruderies about Labour. He did poke fun at the Twitterati and Guardianista multi- millionaires and idiots such as Russell Brand and Charlotte Church (there must be more mileage in her, surely) who predicted a Labour win.
THE reason the Gove speech was good was t hat it attacked ‘the excesses and abuses of capitalism’ and told the party its duty was to the ‘vulnerable and the voiceless’. It used ‘progressive, inclusive, social justice, poorest’ in a warm way. ‘Let’s make sure we are worthy of the hour and worthy of our country,’ said Mr Gove.
As I wandered out, two blokes with fake Jeremy Corbyn beards were handing out ‘ Bank of Labour’ £100 notes. You’d need more than that to buy a cheese bap and a pint of India pale ale at the bar of the Midland Hotel this week.