Where are we now at two-thirds time in the Party Conference season? Enthused, excited at the displays of new dynamic, forward thinking Britain fit for us and future generations,-a place with a clear view of its role in the world and how to fulfil it effectively and efficiently ? A country whose population can look forward to across the board improvements in life stretching from now way into the future?
Sadly no signs of this yet. Few can even remember what the LibDems had to say or were on about in Birmingham other than that they didn't seem to know how to handle the disproportionate power they wield in the coalition government and seemed intent on going back to their constituencies to prepare for oblivion.
The hoped for Labour revival in Liverpool simply didn't happen. It was back to the future and deliberately so. Ed's pause for the booing of Blair wasn't a mistake. He is politically clever and knew what he was doing and what would happen. He was playing to his sponsors ,the phalanx of old style grim faced union leaders holding 50% of the vote who clapped only things about "a fairer society". By that they seem to mean one with no opportunities for anybody other than maybe themselves with the odd banker or fat cat (union fat cats excepted )lynching thrown in for Christmas Day entertainment. Ed's speech was simply dreadful, full of emotion, pain even, but really about what? The BBC mercifully spared those watching it live 7 minutes of it "due to technical problems". Had the monitoring team just fallen asleep? It was after lunch too. When it came back on air it didnt seem as if anything important, or even unimportant, had been missed. The tone was the same, the utterances and vagueries the same and there was more about good and bad businesspeople who would be taxed or rewarded for their performance on a scale of goodness. In the assessment of this The Party would presumably be prosecutor, jury and judge. Brighter, better, superbly led Britain? Great reasons for you and your children not to emigrate to somewhere lacking all the socioeconomic and class based hangups of Britain ? Sorry, no, none of that from Liverpool.
Last up then are the Tories gathering in the resort city of Manchester this very afternoon. "Social networking" is probably well under way and may have started last night. Maybe even some future Daily Mail headlines (Oh how the threat of The Screws is missed in conference season) got under way. Will the attendees and their leaders look any more attractive to the viewers than those of the previous two weeks or will they just look like a more expensive brand the same "None of the above" we have already seen?
One hopes for the best this week, something stunningly different where minutiae are banished and some big broad strokes followed by some swift big broad actions come stunningly into focus and make us say "Yes!". Will anyone dare to say "Yes we can " rather than "No you can't" or will we get bogged down in more apologies for Dave having been rude or inconsiderate ( sorry, misunderstood by) some lady MPs when he got carried away by the lads and behaved badly in the Commons?
Britain's future isn't about "the cuts", "the gummnt" or any of those dreary things. It's about attitude and a willingness to stop sucking at the dried up teets of welfare dependency and instead to just get up and go for it. It? Anything positive. If not we may as well head for the airport, striking out the " Voluntary contribution to carbon offsetting" option on the booking form as we go.
Now it's back to the box to watch for the great Mancunian revelations and resultant dancing in the streets. Any bets on us being gratified and saying "That was great. Wow, how different! What a change! I can go for that"? The bookmakers probably have an opinion. Over to you to prove them wrong Dave.
