That was it for David’s speech.
OK so that is a bit blunt and a bit facile. So the longer analysis is this: he and George did the good cop/bad cop thing to perfection. There will be pain, shared by all, but we will get through it by building a stronger society.
I didn’t think it hung together quite as well as normal, the delivery was a bit scrappier than usual, the total lack of jokes was surprising… But that speech was not aimed at me sitting with my other Tory friends in the hall – it was aimed at the undecided voters still waiting to decide whether to trust the Conservatives. I admit I’m biased but I think/hope that speech will have started to do the job of solidifying what a potential Conservative government would be like in voters’ minds.
This weekend, I had a very interesting conversation with someone about the big government attacks. Me? I took it as ‘society must be bigger’ because that’s what I wanted to hear. He took it as more of a traditional message. Either way – I’m not too bothered, the outcome would be the right one.
I had another interesting conversation (yes I do live a REALLY exciting life…) with someone about the Europe section. He is very much a non-Conservative voter, and thought it was a masterly four paragraphs of tough nothing. Most of the more core Conservatives I’ve spoken to took it as a coded declaration of intent. Again, I’m not desperately concerned – I do think that there will have to be some form of foot-stamping in the EU but I want it to work better, and the whole point of the withdrawal from the EPP, the formation of the ECR and so on is to work to that end.
I had another (very dull – an hour arguing with people you agree with is not inspiring!) conversation about Europe which just went to prove my theory that normal people don’t really care about the EU as an issue, but that direction of travel is all. The overall conclusion (I admit I was quite forceful about it) was that we would rather that a potential Conservative government tried to make things work better than just gave up because it’s too hard.
And I guess that’s really the key message of this speech. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to cause pain. But we have to all try because the alternative is to abandon hope and just give in. That’s a very Conservative message. But framed in a way that leans on, and tries to achieve, seriously progressive ends.
To be honest though, they had me at Bono.
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