SIMON EMMETT . net

Conference season is now over for another year, and what have we learnt. Well, as this was going to the last set of conferences before a General Election, these were the opening salvo’s of the upcoming campaign from each party, and they were telling.

Now, before I get accused of party political bias, I actually asked a couple of friends of mine for their views. I deliberately did this as each of them are staunch supporters of the other two parties, which as you can imagine does make conversations over a beer quite heated if the subject of politics is raised.

The Lib Dem conference. My view of this conference was that it was rather confused, with no real message. Even my Lib Dem supporting friend said that they spent too much time with soundbite policies, trying to appeal to individual errors of the government, when they should have been trying to set out a clear and cohesive plan for what they view as a real alternative government. There just didn’t seem to be any of this.

As for the Labour conference, all of agreed (first time in ages – Ed) that it wasn’t great. There appeared right from the outset a resignation that the time was up, no real flare. I thought that this was Labour’s opportunity to rally the troops and set out what it would do for a fourth term. But there was none of that. Gordon Brown’s speech was awful, the only thing it had was rhetoric of the past, and no vision of the future. The only thing it did was to attack the tories, for being tories. Also, why did Gordon Brown make his speech half through the conference? I asked my friend, and he was as bemused as I was. Surely the point of the leader’s speech is to round up the week, and send the activist’s home with fire in their belly to go out and campaign.

As for the Conservative conference, it did the job. Yes, they could have played it safe, but that would not have been the right thing to do for a party that wants to be in government. David Cameron’s speech, whether you agree with his policies or not, had one thing that Gordon Brown’s didn’t, a vision for the next parliament. My Labour supporting friend even conceded that, although he disagreed with all but one policy – Afghanistan.

So the opening salvo’s have been fired by the major parties, and the clock is now ticking to the next general election. If these conferences are anything to go by you will have a set of mixed messages from the Lib Dems, past rhetoric, and the constant line of  ”those wicked tories” from Labour, and a vision for a better Britain from the Conservatives.

Roll on the election.