Every Cloud has a Silver Lining

With a collective sigh of relief, the Conservative Party conference is over. The Tories are depressed and Manchester, which never really welcomes them, felt a strange venue for a lost tribe.

There was a vacuum at the heart of proceedings with ideas and leadership thin on the ground. In this gloom, any charisma disproportionally attracted attention, hence the spotlight on Ruth, Boris and Jacob. Only one of these merits serious consideration as a future leader but more of that later.

Fringe meetings, where the real action takes place, on the whole appeared dull, with repetitive topics only occasionally offering useful ideas. Advance policy announcements were also incredibly weak on student debt and housing policies which seem unintentionally designed to boost demand not supply. Despite protestations, this is a government so overwhelmed by Brexit, there isn’t the bandwidth for anything else.

And yet there were grounds for optimism, a silver lining in a dark Manchester sky. There was a growing recognition that the case needs to be re-made for free markets, competition and the benefits they bring to the long term enhancement of standards of living for all. Supporters have been negligent in doing this since winning the battles of the 1970s/80s and the new threat of a hard left Labour Party brings urgency to making up lost ground. Philip Hammond and Theresa May in their conference speeches both referenced this but, in fringe meetings, it was Ruth Davidson who articulated the case for centre right politics in modern, refreshing terms.

She wasn’t afraid to use the word ‘centre’ either and represents the future of the Conservative Party. But not yet. She needs time to grow into a leadership role with expectations carefully managed but the combination of insight, humour and authenticity is irreplaceable. The Tories will be reinvigorated by a new intellectual debate on the merits of compassionate, free market capitalism. This is the ground on which they will eventually see off Labour and it would be great if Ruth was eventually the one to lead it.

Lastly, to Theresa’s speech. She soldiered on through a prankster and coughing fits to deliver a solid case for her premiership. In what is surely the most depressing job in politics, she showed some humour and hopefully elicited sympathy in dealing with the trials of her speech. She deserves the respect of her colleagues and the electorate (after all, it was they who voted for Brexit) in managing the almost impossible demands of her role, not least the rampant and often unfounded speculation from the media. It is in everyone’s interest that she should be left alone to get on with that role for now.