Gary Gibbon
Very brief mention of Europe in Cameron’s speech but here’s what we’ve learnt this week. The Poles named the day for signing the Lisbon Treaty today, the Czech prime minister said yesterday that the Czech signature would go down before Christmas. The day is fast approaching when David Cameron will have to tell his party…
Gary Gibbon
Livening up a bit now – they love the stuff about don’t you dare lecture us on poverty, Labour. But I still think, just on the atmospherics, this is a little bit flat. Partly the hall – very difficult to play as others have found all week, and no match for Birmingham Symphony Hall last…
Gary Gibbon
All pretty low key in hall for a leader potentially on edge of power. Doubt Thatcher in 78 was like this – though bits of the message are similar (talk of enterprise and entrepreneurs etc). I know Tony Blair in 1996 was nothing like this. If the intention was to look workmanlike and not euphoric/presumptuous…
Gary Gibbon
A senior Tory strategist on why the Tories aren’t in as strong a position as Tony Blair was just before 1997.
Gary Gibbon
The fact that Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling, caught off guard by the BBC, misunderstood whose government Dannatt might be joining and dismissed the move as a “gimmick” is the icing on the cake.
Jon Snow
I’ve just done a ‘sit down’ with David Cameron, and met his wife too – tall, elegant, very personable. We all met on the 23rd floor of the Hilton here in Manchester, an eerily deserted place with splendid views across the jumble that is Manchester and the sun kissed Pennines beyond. Talked with Cameron for…
Gary Gibbon
The Tories have made a profit of nearly £1.5m at their 2009 party conference, mainly from flogging stall space to corporate Britain.
Why the £13bn the Tories claim to save by raising the state pension age is debatable.
Gary Gibbon
The public sector pay freeze, the biggest contributor to the government money chest announced by George Osborne today, hits women considerably more than men.
Jon Snow
There is so little wiggle room. Nothing so defines the current political contest as the contesting measures that have finally aired from both major parties for paying off the debt. A pay freeze on higher public sector pay and and delay in the national age of retirement. It doesn’t really matter now who says it…
Jon Snow
Here’s rather sweet aside from the rain stricken wastes of Manchester. Last night I ran into David Cameron and his crew, amongst whom was a protection officer from Greater Manchester. I had met him before.
Jon Snow
It hits you like a tidal wave. No sooner are you through the doors of the Manchester Exchange than you are amid a morass of suited, white-shirted, tied-up business folk. Or that’s what it appears.
Gary Gibbon
It was a bit of a walk and talk and he didn’t want to stop, but I think Ken Clarke just told us that he thought it was the settled policy of the Tory Party to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and nothing else. The leadership is clearly thinking about a referendum on…
Gary Gibbon
Boris Johnson speaks to a Tory conference in a pickle over Europe and the Lisbon Treaty.
Jon Snow
I’m not sure I can remember a UK political party gathering that has been so full of uknowns – Europe inheritance tax, cuts, slashing incapacity benefit – as this year’s Conservative party conference.