Back to business

I know what you are thinking. He doesn't post for over a year and then, suddenly, he goes crazy, posting on multiple occasions during a single afternoon. Well, I'm all about consistency; consistent inconsistency, that is.

The tone of this post (and hopefully the content too), though, is set to be more serious. But rather than jumping in at the deep end with the big story, I thought that I'd ease me in with a gentler dose of punditry: party conference season.

Whether you are yellow, red or blue, the time has come to spend a week in a claustrophobic town with over-ambitious hacks. For some, that is the ideal holiday. For others, it is a nightmare. Those who thrive in that environment, I always feel, are cut out for the realpolitik of party life. Those who don't are more likely to be consigned to the oblivion of backbench-life, far away from the limelight of government. (Not that this is a dishonourable vocation, but do people still enter politics to be the 'local champions' of old? Do they not all have more grandiose ambitions?).

But for all that, these are not make-or-break events. Most speeches are immediately forgotten, though that it is not to underplay their importance. Sometimes it is because they do not attract unwanted attention that they are successful. (Think Nick Clegg's speech to conference over the past two years, both attempting to diffuse coalition tensions and persuade the party that they had made the correct choice). Some will temporarily revive political fortunes. Gordon Brown's speech (or, more specifically, his wife, Sarah's) to the Labour Party Conference raised his political stock for a while, yet was unable to change the unerring, downward trajectory of his career. Others may serve as a shot to the arm, injecting new ideas into a stale discourse, notably the Conservative Party Conference in 2009 where he discussed the parlous state of public finances and the deficit reduction it would have to entail. Crucially, though, this was not a game-changer on its own. It took commentators and politicians of all hues to cotton onto these ideas (and even then a further year) for the narrative to become an economic one.

Perhaps, then, I understate their potential. What I mean is that they seldom strike a direct connection with voters. Instead, they appeal to opinion-shapers - the political class, the journalists, and those who, ultimately, do play a significant role in determining the way we vote.

Read, yellow or blue, they should be listened to, this time by you (not the bloke who 'translates' their statements).