Audio podcast: Charon Report (9) – from The Tory Conference
I report today from Britain’s second City, Birmingham – a city almost unknown outside of its own city limits – to report on the gathering of the Tory faithful.
For two years now Cameron and his band of merry Etonians have been able to sit back and watch as Labour digs itself deeper into the merde and enjoy a 20 point lead over Labour – albeit cut back to nine points after Brown’s speech last week. Now, even The Sun (in an article written by the great spinmeister Alastair Campbell, is demanding that Cameron shows us the political money – and tells the 4 million + Sun readers what The Tories stand for and how they will run Britain.
As a warm up to the conference, Mayor Boris was able to repay Arnold Schwarzenegger’s insult describing Boris as ‘fumbling” by telling the faithful “Thank you very much for that welcome. Much more generous than in 2006 when I was physically pelted with pork pies by the press corps or last year when my speaking style was criticised by Arnold Schwarzenegger….. And it was a low moment, my friends, to have my speaking style denounced by a monosyllabic Austrian cyborg.”
David Cameron, concerned about recent Tatler photographs showing a group of young ‘potential’ MPs in designer clothes is reported in The Sun as saying “Am I completely happy with all that? The Conservative Party has got to demonstrate that it is deadly serious about not being complacent.”
And William Hague has decided that he is like Bruce Willis. The Sun reports “The ex-Tory leader said he could double for the Die Hard actor as he said the Conservatives would be “tougher” on criminals. But not to be outdone … apparently… David Cameron had been likened to a “young John Wayne” in a poll by the Sunday Telegraph yesterday.
So…. so far, nothing of any substance from the Tories… but George Osborne… according to The Telegraph will say (and may already have said, but I was not listening attentively enough as my eye was caught by my picture looming over Osborne in the conference hall) quite a bit.
Mr Osborne, the shadow chancellor, will blame Labour for encouraging people to run up “more than a trillion pounds” of debt, without pausing to consider what would happen when credit dried up. He will vow that the Tories “will make sure that this mess never happens again…. Mr Osborne will warn that “the party is over” and promise to end the country’s “dependence on debt”.
That is all for this first report from Birmingham.
I won’t however, be going to the Lap Dancing Club in Birmgham featured on Guido Fawkes’ blog – a banner over the front door proclaiming” the ROCKET CLUB welcomes the Tories. There’s nothing conservative about us”.
This is Charon, about to nip off and have a balti, from Birmingham.
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Of course the Tories would “make sure that this mess never happens again” … they’ll invent a whole new kind of mess so that we can at least enjoy the novelty.
The financial prudence (hmmm … where’ve I heard that term before?) that we’ve heard so much about today is all well and good but in times like these? Keynes would be turning in his grave if he could hear Osborne’s smooth platitudes … but, then, if he could hear them where he is, he’d have a lot more to worry about that the state of the economy.
The phrasing may be changing under Cameron and they may be offering some tinkering around the edges but the underlying message is the same: it’s all our fault and the solution is cuts. Again.
i reckon the tories are the ones to keep the bankers in check.
no no – they are totally different tories from those other tories you may have heard about who errr didn’t keep the bankers in check.
they will also re-open the mines, rebuild the shattered manufacturing economy and sort out the health service. tories winning in the traditional blue policy areas. they can also airlift supplies to impoverished northerners using those porcine transporters that fly so well… somebody check the calendar.
Cor! The Tories have my vote then … assuming they let me out of the asylum in time.
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Went the hell did birmingham become the second city?!
Everyone knows that it is Glasgow which carries the title of the second city of the empire!
tis a brave man who crosses a weegie!