All the fun of the fair

As Iain Dale prepares to join the political merry-go-round for another year, he asks what are party conferences for in the 21st century?

For the last 25 years I, along with several thousand other political geeks, have traipsed round Britain’s less glamorous seaside resorts seeking our annual fix of political gossip, philosophy and possibly a bit of inspiration too. The party political conferences may, to the outside world, look as tedious as hell, but to those of us who are addicted, we wouldn’t miss them for the world.

There have been moments of high drama and low intrigue – memorable moments and inspirational speeches. But there is little doubt that they have changed beyond all recognition over the last 20 years. To hold a conference indicates a desire to confer, or at least consult your members about the policies you’re deploying, or wish to deploy. At least, that used to be the case, and with the Liberal Democrats it still is to some extent. But nowadays the Labour and Conservative conferences do not deserve to be called conferences. We should call them what they are – American style rallies, or conventions. Their sole purpose is to attract good media coverage and control a message. All the speakers are handpicked. The sessions are generally sterile and the platform speeches are delivered with only one aim in mind – to get on the Six O’Clock News.

Of course, there are exceptions. The 2005 Conservative Conference in Blackpool allowed all the potential Conservative Party leadership candidates to display their wares and allow the 5,000 party members present to touch their collective hems. The result? Frontrunner David Davis lost his pole position and we discovered that the young pretender David Cameron could make a speech in which the main message seemed to be “look, no notes”. An admiring press was beguiled and Cameron never looked back. Davis, however, was dead in the water. Without that conference speech, Davis would probably have walked the leadership election. And that’s why conferences are still important.

One of Davis’s more successful announcements in that campaign was that the autumn conference would be shortened to three days over a weekend, but there would be a second conference in the Spring, the purpose of which would be to properly debate policy. It wouldn’t decide policy, but at least the party would get the chance to discuss it. But the proposal sank like a stone.

The media still flock to the two main party conferences, although they take some persuading to cover the Lib Dems, not to mention UKIP or the Greens. Like the political parties, they have little interest in covering policy debate. They obsess about coded messages given by politicians on the conference fringe, or wait to film a frontbencher who may have had one over the odds at the hotel bar. They will cover the Leader’s speech but, unless anyone else says anything vaguely off message, they’re generally not interested. As usual, they are personality rather than issue-driven. But the political parties treat them like Gods. Frontbenchers judge their popularity by how many lunch or dinner invitations they receive during the conference from political editors or proprietors. They worship at the altar of publicity, just as they do the rest of the year. Even when they are hauled over the coals by the very same journalists they seem to prostrate themselves before them and cry “more please!” Why on earth do they bother? It usually ends in tears.

They bother because conferences are a way of making money. No one knows how much the commercial exhibitions make, but it can run into the hundreds of thousands of pounds. The Conservatives went through lean times in the late 1990s and the earlier part of this decade, but their conference this year is sold out. The cheapest stand costs £3,000 but the larger stands cost tens of thousands of pounds. Nice money if you can get it.

Even the Lib Dems reckon to make a profit on their conference, even though the commercial exhibition is a fraction of the size of those at Labour and the Conservatives.

Party Conferences will continue for as long as the three main parties can make money out of them. Labour cancelled its normal Spring Conference this year because it threatened to make a loss. They would have no hesitation in doing the same to their main autumn conference.

This year I will be attending all three main party conferences. You probably feel sorry for me. Don’t bother. I love every minute of it.

Iain Dale is the publisher of Total Politics Magazine.