David Cameron's speech to the Conservative conference 2009.

So it's all over. If I had to give the conference a score, I'd give 9/10. I look back over the week and I cannot think of any part of it that I considered badly judged. If you think "A Tory would think that", then you should also consider that I have voted Labour in the last three General Elections. Cameron's speech gets a 10. It wasn't rip-roaring, it wasn't overly clever, it wasn't an attack job - However, Cameron's speech was perfect for the situation. Here's my favourite section:

So I won't promise things I cannot deliver. But I can look you in the eye and tell you that in a Conservative Britain: If you put in the effort to bring in a wage, you will be better off. If you save money your whole life, you'll be rewarded. If you start your own business, we'll be right behind you. If you want to raise a family, we'll support you. If you're frightened, we'll protect you.If you risk your safety to stop a crime, we'll stand by you. If you risk your life to fight for your country, we will honour you.

Ask me what a Conservative government stands for and the answer is this, we will reward those who take responsibility, and care for those who can't.

You can read the full speech HERE, or you can watch the full video HERE.

I will work an extra year as a patriotic duty. (Pension 66)

George Osborne is to announce that the retirement age for men will rise to sixty six. Am I happy about having to work an extra year? Most definitely not - but I do understand the reasons behind having to. George has been forced into this situation by Gordon Brown's massive pile of debt. The debt has to be paid off, or we will never recover from Labour's disastrous and incompetent spending frenzy.

On my sixty fifth birthday I will wake up and thank Gordon Brown, not George Osborne, for stealing away a year of my retirement. But I will go to work willingly in the knowledge that I will be doing so for patriotic reasons. If by working an extra year I can help the country get back on it's feet - then so be it. If by working an extra year I can improve the future for my children and grandchildren - then so be it.

I served in the Navy for sixteen years, and I will see this extra year as one more for the country. But I will NOT forget Gordon Brown.

Winkball video - Public reaction to Brown's Conference speech.

Winkball.com have been out and about in Brighton asking the public their opinion on the Labour conference and Gordon Brown's speech. The people are none too happy with Gordo the great:

You must read John Redwood's letter from CEO, UK PLC

John Redwood's blog is always great, but I particularly love his letters from the CEO of UK PLC. Today's is basically a ridicule of Gordon Brown's keynote conference speech:

Dear Shareholder,

I thought you would be pleased to know we are having a great sales conference this week. On Monday our new Communications Director warmed up the audience brilliantly, whilst yesterday I got them to their feet with spontaneous applause even before I’d finished.

Some of the market research still looks poor, but we don’t believe a word of it. We just keep buying the research to help keep up the spending and the borrowing in accordance with our recovery strategy. The Sales force loved some of the new spending ideas we launched. Who said we’d run out of ways to spend your money, or even worse run out of uses for all the borrowings? It’s true some of the things we’d proposed before, but this time with the printing presses running there’s no reason why we shouldn’t just spend it to get them. So if it’s home care, cancer care, tougher policing or a new car you are wanting, we’ll put it on the UK’s flexible friend, the borrowing requirement. That’ll do nicely Sir. No there’s no need to pay a thing this side of the Election.

As I pointed out to the Sales force, who were a bit down before I explained it all, this extra spending will help us trounce our main competitors. They keep going round telling people they have to pay for things they order, and telling them that one day they have to repay the borrowings. That’s madness in my book.

You can read the rest of the letter by clicking HERE.

My response to Gordon Brown's Conference Speech.

Today Gordon Brown will give his keynote speech to the Labour party conference. He will say:

Blah, blah, blah antisocial behaviour. Blah, blah, blah crime. Blah, blah, blah investment in public services. Blah, blah, blah I saved the world. Blah, blah, blah G20. Blah, blah, blah Obama. Blah, blah, blah fight back. Blah, blah, blah did I mention that I saved the world? Blah, blah, blah the Tories will eat your first born. Blah, blah, blah the Tories will burn down Schools and Hospitals. Blah, blah, blah the Tories will drown kittens and puppies by the sack-full. Blah,blah, blah little children crying. Blah, blah, blah God speaks to me. Blah, blah, blah remind me - did I mention that I saved the world? Blah, blah, blah I will tax the evil rich! Blah, blah, blah fightback starts here!

And my response?

The politics of envy are dead. You didn't save the world - you are trying to drag us out of a hole that you dug. The country trusts the Tories more than you to stop wasting our money. And it's too bloody late to promise to fix what you have broken over the last twelve years. Call an Election now before you cause even more damage.

Gordon Brown - Riding a dead Labour Government?

As we approach the Labour party conference, I've been thinking about the state of the Labour party now, and what they have achieved under Gordon Brown. There will be the obvious talk of a post conference bounce, but I think even the most optimistic Labour MP realises that the game is up. Labour know that they are doomed - and I'm sure they are kicking themselves for not getting rid of Brown when they had the chance - it's far to late now. To prove the point, only today did the BBC news site run a story on how Cabinet Ministers are coming out in support of Brown. They realise that the time has gone to be infighting and plotting for power - they are stuck with Brown through to the General Election.

I was trying to think of a way of getting over how terrible this Labour government has been under Brown's leadership. Unfortunately there are just too many cock-ups, embarrassments, lies and feats of incompetence to list. Then I remembered the "Riding a dead horse" analogy, and upon reading it for the first time in several years, I realised that it sums up Gordon Brown, and the Labour party's method of governance perfectly:

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Indians, passed on from one generation to the next, says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

But in the Labour Party, other strategies are often tried with dead horses, including the following:

1. Buying a stronger whip.

2. Changing riders.

3. Threatening the horse with termination.

4. Appointing a committee to study the horse.

5. Arranging to visit other sites to see how they ride dead horses.

6. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included.

7. Reclassifying the dead horse as "living-impaired".

8. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse.

9. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed.

10. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance.

11. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance.

12. Declaring that the dead horse carries lower overhead and therefore contributes more to the bottom line than some other horses.

13. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses.

14. Promoting the dead horse to a supervisory position.

Lib Dems - The real party of change!

Lib Dems - The real party of change! - What's this? a Tory supporter agreeing with Nick Clegg that his party is the party of change?

No party is changing more than the Lib Dems. In fact - if you watch their conference this week - you will no doubt see their policies changing with the Bournemouth tides. Vince Cable's much celebrated list of cuts announced this week fly in the face of recent Lib Dem promises to spend £6.7bn on childcare and education (see Straight Talk with Andrew Neil). There are rumours about them dropping their "scrap tuition fees" policy, but who knows? Clegg has been quiet for months, but now, he's not calling for those ordinary Conservative cuts, or fluffy union pleasing Labour cuts - oohh no! - he's calling for savage Lib Dem cuts! - the man is an animal I tell yer, grrrrr...

The Lib Dems are changing so much that many supporters may cry "stop I want to get off".

Conservative Conference highlights Tuesday. 30/9/08

The Raven has a interesting post on Brown and Darling's announcement to protect savings.

Nick Herbert's excellent speech on prisons:

A well measured speech from a man who looks more like a Prime Minister than Gordon "Mavis" Brown:

Nick Robinson points out that Gordon Brown is (to put it very bloody politely) not telling the whole truth about the £50,000 customer protection announcement.

Conservative conference - Great line from Grant Shapps.

Great line from Grant Shapps.

"Thanks to the Government, thousands of families are facing repossession. Brown the bailiff..knocking on their doors...and it's our job to stop him".

David Cameron and George Osborne - A great team.

If you want to see how a Prime Minister and his Chancellor should get on, watch this clip of the aftermath of George Osborne's speech to the Conservative conference.

And Compare that to Labour.

George Osborne's Conference speech - two year council tax freeze

What a bloody excellent speech from Shadow Chancellor George Osborne. He outlined perfectly where it all went wrong under Brown and how a Conservative government would set things right. And he managed to pull another great policy out of his hat: a Conservative government would bring in a two year council tax freeze.

I'll update this post when I can get hold of George's full speech and the reactions to it.

Just one QUESTION: Don't you think it's a bit of a coincidence that George Bush started his speech, the exact second that George Osborne finished his?

UPDATE: Video of full speech.

Conservative Conference highlights. 28/9/08

Over the next few days of the Conservative conference I will be pointing you towards the many highlights - whether they be press articles, press releases, videos, interviews and last but not least blog posts.

To start the ball rolling, here is a great interview with George Osborne in The Independent.

When you have finished there, you might want to click HERE (28min 50secs in) to see David Cameron performing well on the Andrew Marr show this morning. Be warned, Marr does not hide is support for Gordon Brown in this interview.


And HERE is another great picture from The Spine. It's not about the conference, but it is very topical.

14:30 David Cameron has just addressed the conference. David ended an excellent speech with: “People in this country are crying out for change. We have a plan for change – so let’s show them with everything we’ve got that we can be that change.”

Update: A great line from Liam Fox: "When New labour came to power, it was a charm offensive. Then the 'charm' resigned, and now it's just offensive."

Today's conference score: 9/10 - it's been a bloody great day. We have had unity, policy, great speeches, a great venue and a genuine feel good factor. I would have given today a 10, but I've got a feeling that the next few days will be even better. This could be a match for last years conference.

Conservative Conference 2008, Expect an end to "nice to have" Labour policies.

In the last year, Labour Ministers (and some of their media friends) have tried to make the Tory shadow cabinet out to be "policy-lite". In truth conservative supporters know that the party has been carrying out in depth policy reviews for the last couple of years. There has been a reluctance to announce Conservative policy resulting from these reviews in the fear that they will be stolen by a desperate Labour government, short of ideas, and out of touch with the people. Last year's Conservative conference is a prime example, most of the policy announced in George Osborne's speech, soon became Labour party policy.

Apparently a poll by PoliticsHomes PHI100 (Britain's most authoritative survey of inside and expert political opinion) shows (according to Andrew Rawnsley) that the "Tory Conference Will Be Policy Lite". I'm sorry, but this is just another dodgy poll from politicshome. The four choices put to the panel of 100 experts can only lead to the "policy lite" conclusion. Have a look at the poll, if it were a ladder, several important rungs would be missing. The choices given to the experts go in the following order: How many policies will be announced at the Conservative conference: a) very little, b) not a lot, c) a little, and d) a lot. Can you see the missing rungs? The choices jump from "a little" to "a lot" in one very large step. What happened to "a reasonable amount" or "several, but not loads"?

I'm expecting some great policies coming out of this conference. We will see a united front on all the main problems currently facing the nation - the economy, law and order, health and education. I expect to see immigration become a question not just of sensible control, but of much needed integration. I also hope that the party will see the "Green issue" as the majority of the public see it - it would be nice to be environmentally responsible, but only if we can afford it. Our first priority must be to ensure we have an energy supply which is secure, affordable and of a sufficient capacity.

While Gordon Brown is promising vote winning, neck saving and expensive policies, some of our elderly will be at severe risk this winter. Policies like helping kids get on the Internet are nice to have - but helping our elderly pay their energy bills this winter is a MUST HAVE. We must cut spending on "nice to have" New Labour policies (like ID Cards and Data bases) and divert the money to "must have" policies - whilst at the same time trying reducing national debt - and eventually (it may take years), affordable tax cuts.

I'm looking forward to a great Tory conference.

Lib Dem Conference - Nick Clegg's fairytale speech.

I've just had the great displeasure of watching someone do a exceedingly poor impression of David Cameron. In fact I had to stop watching for the sake of my blood pressure. Talking without notes, à la Cameron (but using very discreet autocue), Clegg set out a political agenda that proved that the Lib Dems will do anything and say anything to win votes. He promised tax cuts (this week) and social justice. Tax cuts that he has struggled to explain were the money will come from. As for social justice, I don't think he explained at all how that was going to be achieved, but he did say it would be nice to have some.

It also seems that he would like us to be living in caves in about twenty years time. NO NUCLEAR and NO COAL he proclaimed to an audience that managed to look both jubilant and uncomfortable in clothing hand knitted from their own pubic hair. I'm sure Clegg keeps up with current affairs (well I hope he does, £30 p/w pension?), so he must have seen recent reports slating alternative sources of energy as being a) bloody expensive, and b) I think more importantly, bloody useless. He is making policy promises that he knows that he will never get to implement and would never work if he did.

I've always thought of the Lib Dems as the nice to have party. A lot of their policies would be nice to have if they had any chance of working, or if we had any chance of being able to afford them. The main gist of Clegg's speech seemed to be aimed at attracting Labour voters, attacking Cameron and adopting a Tory stance to help the party fight marginal southern seats. All in all, his speech was well delivered, but it lacked substance and was full of the usual Lib Dem fairytales.

And as for: "I can tell you where we're headed. Government!" - well, words really do fail me.