Autumn in Manchester is usually rainy, so I packed accordingly. It didn’t rain as much as predicted in the conference centre, in fact whilst the mainstream media reported we were all down in the dumps, my impressions from Conservative Party Conference 2023 were that there are still embers alight in the party, albeit perhaps not where you might think they’d be.
My conferences nowadays revolve around events - and as the LGA Conservative Group lead for conference, my normally quite busy agenda became packed with a mixture of LGA events and fringes I’d been asked to speak at as simply now an experienced senior councillor from a red wall. The LGA Conservatives Group used our events to launch our manifesto to a room full of councillors and friends. It’s always great to have ministers and our Secretary of State with us, and across the events I chaired, we had a good turnout. Councillors really appreciate the opportunity to speak to ministers, and you can’t underestimate how important the opportunity to ask your question, raise your concern or even have your photo standing up for your area is. Even after the drubbing in May, spirits amongst Conservative councillors as a collective remain positive.
Outside of LGA events, my fringe activities were a reminder that discussion and thinking is still ongoing in the party, and is perhaps even more diverse than I’ve seen before. Events for Localis (local government finance), Conservative Environment Network (biodiversity), ConservativeHome (building beautiful), Centre for Cities (high streets) and Institute for Government (local institutions for levelling up) covered lots of ground and platformed new thinking on a variety of subjects. Now, whether they get beyond discussion is another thing, but it is good to hear strong voices on all these subjects.
I can’t write about conference without mentioning that 2023 was my first time to the PM’s conference speech. I’ve been to lots of rallies, conferences, events both political and governmental, however the staging of this centre point really was something else. Coordinated and concise, possibly perfectly made for tv coverage and certainly influenced by American politics in the staging and setting. I hadn’t previously seen much of Penny Mordaunt (beyond the Coronation), but came away as a newly devoted fan. Great stage craft and hugely impressive. Johnny Mercer was a great counterpoint, to the point and sincere. The introduction by Mrs Sunak was sweetly done, and although I was by now suffering from the fidgets during the main speech, I left feeling quite uplifted by the PM’s speech. Of course, there’s always little bits you might not agree with, but the overall sentiment was not lost on me and I stumbled into the Manchester sunlight with a sense of perhaps slightly more positivity than I’d entered with a few days prior.
My session for the IfG ⤵️
https://soundcloud.com/institute-for-government/how-can-the-government-…
