On and on they came. One cabinet minister after another in a race to the bottom to appear the most listless and disengaged while the audience politely clapped every cliche. The Soviet show trials had nothing on the Conservative party conference for contrived stage management.
When the main hall becomes oppressive, there’s usually plenty of entertainment to be found in the fringe meetings. But this week fun has been thin on the ground as three-quarters of the meetings are called: “Why Brexit is Going to be Absolutely Brilliant”, all of which feature three guest speakers, ranging in opinion from those who can’t stand the EU to those who would still like to shoot every German on sight.
Balance has been hard to come by and the Europhiles are the new pariahs of the Tory party. Anything less than whole-hearted enthusiasm for Brexit has become a thoughtcrime.
What isn’t Brexit-related is usually either uncontentious or entirely speculative. Across the road from the main conference centre at the Jurys Inn, a lunchtime session promised to answer all your questions about parking. If I’d needed to know how to appeal against a parking ticket, it could have been quite valuable. Instead, I opted for a discussion on “How can the Conservatives position themselves for the fourth industrial revolution?” to which MP James Cleverley’s short – and rather too long – answer was: “I don’t know.” He then went on to suggest that every job he could think of other than his own would be automated within 10 years. His audience gloomily chewed on a lavish buffet – it’s often hard to know who’s just turned up for the free nosh – as they contemplated the futility of their lives.
With reality proving to be almost entirely unrewarding, there was only one thing for it. Virtual reality. In the main concourse there was a stand offering anyone the chance to feel as if they were driving a tractor that was collecting potatoes to be turned into McDonald’s chips. It was a lot more fun than it sounds even if the bar was unusually low. Even better was the shotgun range, run by the British Association for Shooting and Conservation, where you could blast imaginary grouse out of an imaginary sky. An ideal exercise in anger management. The grouse love it too, apparently. They never feel more alive than when they’re being shot at. Except when they’re dead.
Back in the main hall, Jeremy Hunt was trying to prove that he wasn’t an automaton like the rest of the cabinet by having the lectern removed and speaking to the hall from the front of the stage. It was a move that badly backfired as it just made the strings operating his arms and legs even more visible. “Let’s give a clap to all the hardworking people in our NHS,” he said, his arms being yanked together by an apparatchik up in the flies. After that, his legs repeatedly kicked the hardworking people in our NHS by telling them they could all sod off back to wherever they had come from because British people only wanted to be treated by British doctors and nurses. The audience loved that.
Justine Greening rounded off a dismal day. The education secretary has been bounced into selling a policy in which she doesn’t believe and she made little effort to conceal her lack of enthusiasm. The stagehands pulling her strings tugged and tugged but still couldn’t stretch her mouth into a smile. The closest she came to a flicker of life was when she spotted that at least one third of the seats were empty. The fewer people to witness her embarrassment the better.
“Grammars are great,” she said through teeth grating on the great. “We’re not returning to the 1950s because we want everyone to be able to go to a grammar school.” Inside, Greening died a little more as she contemplated the idiocy of what she had been forced to say. But there was nothing for it but to plough on. “Nor will we be returning to selection at 11. Instead, children can take the 11+ whenever they want.” At 12, at 13, at 14 and three-quarters, at fifteen and a half. Like that was really going to work.
Greening reached inside her dress and pulled out a knife. She hacked at the strings and then slit her throat. It was the kindest cut of the week.
