Party On

It’s that time of year when we scrutinise every speech, the dress codes, behaviour, fringe meetings, the press coverage…..it is party conference time.

I can’t help comparing our party conferences to the mass balloon letting, choreographed, diamond studded, staged managed events in the States. Our conferences seem less ‘show biz’ yet they combine the spectacle of grass roots/die hard supporters with commercial realities.

When looking at the recent conferences in the States, I was taken aback by the age of the audience  - perhaps those images of sleeping OAPs during key note speeches in the UK has coloured my view. At least, I thought ‘we don’t have to roll out the wives and the children in order to win votes’. How wrong I was.

Surely political speeches shouldn’t be remembered for the role of the wives? Should conferences be remembered for the pop eyed pictures and the unfortunate banana photo calls? In this ‘less is more, lean and keen’ era surely we should be concentrating on the actual message and policies and less on the glitz, glamour and WAG element…….or am I just being terribly old fashioned?