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MPs rightly dismiss proposals from Boris Johnson that Theresa May rejected as entirely unworkable
All party conferences feel as if they exist in their own inward-looking world, but this year’s Conservative bash was more dystopian than most. The main hall was an energy-free zone where speaker after speaker appeared to have been given instructions to be as mediocre as possible. The audience couldn’t even get animated when Priti Patel promised to crack down on criminals, something that is usually guaranteed to get members stamping their feet. Then again, with one Tory MP, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, being slung out of the conference centre by police after holding a one-man siege of the international lounge moments before the home secretary’s speech, Boris Johnson facing an inquiry into alleged misuse of public funds during his friendship with Jennifer Arcuri, the government having been found to have acted unlawfully in regard to the recent prorogation and ministers actively working on ways to avoid complying with the Benn act, the Tories had to be careful about who they wanted to clamp down on. Outside the hall, the exhibition was most notable for a stand selling tinned fish – ideal for stockpiling – and one promoting the Cayman Islands as a holiday destination. Come for the tax avoidance, stay for the turtles. With almost no backbench MPs present – only lobbyists and the odd diehard member bother to turn up – the main goal of ministers was to get through the four days without putting their foot in it by letting on that they didn’t have a clue what the Brexit plan was or saying the wrong thing. Not all managed it. Having already had his headline announcement of 40 new hospitals knocked back to six partial refurbs, Matt Hancock, who never knowingly commits himself to a position that can’t be reversed, made the schoolboy error of saying he believed Charlotte Edwardes, the journalist who made the groping allegations against the prime minister. The health secretary looked desperate for days after. Still, the conference turned a tidy profit for the Tories, so job done with an election looming. Continue reading...