Bournemouth
The current Tory position on tax cuts is rather like the doctrine of the Trinity. It makes no sense unless you know the questions that lie behind it. It is not really a position about tax cuts, but a position about how to go into an election campaign. In 2001, Oliver Letwin was chased high and low by the press who wanted him to confirm his suggestion that there would be huge spending cuts over the course of a parliament. In 2005, Mr Letwin, by then shadow chancellor, stuck to spending cuts of £8 billion, but Howard Flight exploded this in a private, leaked speech which suggested much bigger cuts concealed. This time, the Tories do not want to have any rate or amount of tax or spend that can be hung round their necks. They want to avoid having to make any specific promise at all. Their position that spending will rise, but that ‘the proceeds of growth’ will allow them to cut taxes as well, at least has the merit that it will probably turn out to be true (no government in modern times has actually cut tax, as opposed to cutting its share of GDP). George Osborne is correct that when the Tories returned to power in 1979 they avoided promising tax cuts with figures attached or, indeed, an immediate fall in the overall tax burden. What they said was that taxes were too high, and that the burden of tax should shift from direct to indirect. Their first act, while cutting income tax, was almost to double the rate of VAT. During the 1979 campaign Jock Bruce-Gardyne, economic columnist of this paper and a parliamentary candidate, wrote a piece in the Daily Telegraph entitled ‘Where the axe will have to fall’. The indelicacy of such a piece at such a time persuaded Mrs Thatcher to keep Jock out of office for a couple of years, although she probably agreed with every word he had written. The Tories today are mirroring Blair and Brown in 1997: Labour was determined at all costs to avoid fighting an election arguing for higher tax, because they knew it would count against them. The Conservatives are determined to avoid fighting one committed to spending cuts. The strange result, in both cases, is that the Opposition hopes to win by being as like the government as possible. It sounds dotty, but it has a sort of logic. I am happy to recite the new credal formulary, so long as the Tories do not persuade themselves, by mistake, that tax cuts are a bad thing.
The perfect, still weather here strengthens the general impression that this conference is pointless. People sunbathe and swim in the sea, even though it is October, and the tone of voice in the hall is as sweet and low as the sound of the western sea outside. It is all to do with the press. The Tories rely on us for coverage, but they do not want the coverage to be at all exciting, because it is their policy, at this stage, not to cause any controversy. This is a perfectly sensible way to behave, but it means thin pickings for us, so we wander round looking for trouble. Behind all the iPod generation stuff, the Conservatives have actually reverted to the party conference as it used to be in the age of deference. Everybody is extremely well behaved and platitudinous and claps everybody else. Perhaps David Cameron should reinstitute the custom by which the leader used to think it rude to interfere with the proceedings of the conference by attending, and descended only on the last day to deliver his speech. Then we could confine our visit to a day trip without short-changing the readers.
It was left to Boris Johnson to fulfil his historic role of causing controversy, and not only when he attacked Jamie Oliver. At the Daily Telegraph fringe meeting which I chaired, Boris cast doubt on the wisdom of localism. He pointed out that if communities were really free to run themselves, some of them — he suggested Tower Hamlets and parts of Bradford would impose sharia. He is right that this is the desire of substantial numbers of Muslims. Like the acquis communautaire doctrine of the European Union, which forbids anything acquired to be surrendered, there is a fairly widespread Muslim belief that geographical space, once won for Islam, becomes sacred and cannot be alienated. This is surely not what most people envisage when they extol local democracy. Boris declared that his remark would be the end of his political career — ‘It’s happened before.’ An elderly woman then fainted and Boris helped carry her out, a fine example of his famed ability to sweep women off their feet.
As the uncle of two autistic boys, I am deciding to take umbrage at George Osborne’s suggestion that Gordon Brown is autistic. Autistic people do not make speeches about how much they love their children, pretend that they listen to the Arctic Monkeys and smile peculiarly when they think it will win them votes. They have no interest in being prime minister and telling us about their ‘vaalues’. In his earlier days, when Mr Brown did seem rather autistic, one had more respect for him.
In the bowels of a Bournemouth hotel the Think-Tank of the Year, Policy Exchange, organises an exciting and humiliating latenight quiz. I captain the team of journalists to heavy defeat by the politicians (Nicholas Soames, Michael Gove, Eric Pickles). One stunt is to be made to read out the words of one statesman in the voice of another. It falls to me to play Roy Jenkins declaiming the anti-European sentiments of Margaret Thatcher. Afterwards a friend tells me that many years ago she found herself behind Roy in a bank in Tuscany. The cashier refused to give him money. He drew himself up sternly and stated, ‘Io sono il Pwesidente di Euwope.’ Back at home, I went down our drive early in the morning and saw two bottles lying on the gravel. Yobs, I thought — litter bugs! But when I got close to them I found that one bottle, of white wine, was full and unopened — and that the other, of mouthwash, had been lightly swigged. I tried to reconstruct the scene. Were these the implements of teenage love, the mouthwash drunk before the bottle could be amorously shared? Or was the mouthwash for removing the smell of wine from the breath to avoid parental detection, and, if so, why had the mouthwash been touched and the wine not? Why, finally, had both bottles been left behind, as if in haste? The mystery was good enough for my irritation to evaporate. I have got a bottle of Rosemount Chardonnay if the owner cares to claim it.
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