Post-party conference diary: Is Boris Johnson’s magic wearing off?

The Briton’s Protection is a historic pub opposite the red brick walls of Manchester Central, the old railway terminus where the Conservative Party has just been meeting. The pub is celebrated by real ale enthusiasts and for offering a choice of over two hundred whiskies. However, its proudest moment came in 1819 when it witnessed and survived the Peterloo Massacre. 

I stumbled on the building while wandering around, disoriented, looking for somewhere else, which I never found. Reading the history posted on the pub’s walls only got me more confused. I started to wonder which side Boris Johnson’s Tory Party would have been on at Peterloo. These days all sides would, of course, decry the “excessive use of force”, which resulted in 18 deaths when magistrates ordered the cavalry to charge some 60,000 unarmed men, women and children demonstrating for reform. 

Peterloo has always been a rallying totem for the left, viewed as a direct confrontation between ordinary people in dire need and an oppressive, selfish and vicious establishment. 

Political reaction in the aftermath saw the poet, atheist and official security risk Percy Shelley on one side and an already oppressive Tory government on the other. The government reacted by backing the magistrates, prosecuting survivors, censoring the media and enacting further crackdowns against dissent. 

That is how Conservative governments are alleged to behave by their critics. But now, Boris Johnson and his ministers are attacking elites and blaming private businesses for shortages, low wages and low productivity. The forces of law and order can no longer rely on the reflexive support from ministers they have relied on for most of the past two centuries either. 

In response to the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer, the Home Secretary has set up much more far-reaching investigations into the Metropolitan Police than its defensive Commissioner Cressida Dick wanted. 

What struck me most at the Conservative conference, or #CPC21 as the organisers like to call it, was the extraordinary shape-shifting act attempted by Boris Johnson. Even Neil Kinnock would be surprised that a Conservative Prime Minister has been branded “economically illiterate” by the Adam Smith Institute. 

Parties have always shifted their positions. Kinnock turned Labour multilateralist on nuclear weapons and pro-Europe. Tony Blair abandoned Clause 4. Margaret Thatcher was a champion of European membership, and her government was the prime mover of the European single market, which her self-proclaimed heirs were determined to escape. All these changes took years of internal argument and agonising.

Today Boris Johnson just says it, and it becomes policy – from the party of business to “F*** Business” in a matter of days. “What is business?” one minister retorted when I asked if he was worried about alienating a core constituency of supporters. 

Ministers insist that shortages will force employers to put up wages, but they refuse to accept that there will also be knock-on consequences for the number of job vacancies, inflation and the cost of living. Peterloo was in large part a protest against the Corn Laws and high food prices.

Party Conferences are not what they were. Even as the Prime Minister asked the faithful gathered in Manchester to clap themselves for their forbearance and fortitude during the pandemic, with hardly a mask in sight, attendance was down some 30 per cent on regular turnout pre-Covid. Nor were there many protesters outside, Stuart Holmes the longstanding anti-smoking/No Nuke’s protester wasn’t there. 

But Piers Corbyn and Steve Bray, the shouty pro-European, turned up for a while, a disabled man confronted Jacob Rees Mogg, and some louts chucked a traffic cone at Iain Duncan-Smith. Still, there were no significant mass demonstrations, spitting and chanting “scum” as at previous Troy Mancunian idylls. 

Thanks to Angela Rayner blue improvised “Tory Scum” badges were the most in-demand accessories for delegates. Labour used to hammer out policy during their conference week. The Conservatives avoided binding votes but used successive days as a shop window to develop new policies and themes. Not this year. Both parties’ conferences were only about the leader’s speech on the final day. 

Other debates were merely talking therapy for the few who attended. Johnson slapped down those who would succeed him this year, confining Rishi, Liz, Priti and the rest of them to soft furnishings in a small, lifeless auditorium in the round. He reserved a separate proper platform and arena for his use alone. 

So why not just have an annual one day rally, conveniently at the weekend, and save conferences or conventions for election years – as happens in many other countries? 

The answer is that conferences are profitable for the party machines. They each make several hundred thousand pounds from accreditation fees, space rentals and rake-offs from official hospitality and hotels. 

Best of all, the media bear the cost of providing free publicity. For near-bankrupt Labour, every penny counts. The fees are a good start for the Conservatives and provide a backdrop for the massaging of high net worth donors conducted in private suites by co-chairmen Ben Elliott and Oliver Dowden.

Boris Johnson seized his moment to do what he does best – optimistic boosterism peppered with jokes. He ignored the country’s specific challenges and shifted the blame in general terms away from the government. 

Unsurprisingly there was no reference to the ending of the £20 uplift in Universal Credit, which coincided with his speech. His bold suggestion that Margaret Thatcher would have introduced the recent tax increases fell flat with the audience, which had to be tickled back to life with some wordplay and mockery of Jeremy Corbyn or Keir Starmer. 

Students of Johnson’s speaking style know that he often deliberately courts disaster with his listeners, professing ignorance and muddle only to jerk back control with a pointed reference to a deeply held concern of theirs – or at least the promise of more food and drink. 

In Manchester, there was no such happy denouement. His short speech went out of focus after a strong start and never recovered.

Boris Johnson even missed a final climax. The Prime Minister was reduced to signalling what he’d finished by picking up his papers, walking away from the lectern and embracing his wife. A brief standing ovation duly followed.

A stronger finale might have been expected from a politician known as a great communicator. Afterwards, friends speculated that perhaps he never got around to writing a conclusion to his speech – he certainly never rehearsed one. 

Johnson’s unique communicating style is rightly celebrated. “Have I Got News for You has a lot to answer for”, one distinguished commentator moaned bitterly. As Prime Minister, he has delivered creditable performances with scripts prepared by officials both in the Commons and at news conferences. 

But he has yet to turn to his advantage two important types of communication mastered by more pedestrian politicians: the serious platform speech and the live broadcast interview. 

Rather than hammering home a message, his media round in Manchester repeatedly degenerated into bickering with his interviewers and insider journalist-to-journalist deconstruction of the process of interviewing.

Keir Starmer’s sharpest barb in Brighton may prove to be that Boris Johnson is “a trivial man”. Communicators like to claim that “nobody” listens to leaders’ speeches, the clips shown on the main news bulletins are what matter.

The pollsters Opinium showed extracts of the speeches by both men to groups of over a thousand votes. The Prime Minister was only narrowly ahead in all question categories, except he was judged “out of touch” by 45 per cent to 44 per cent, and “interesting” rather than “boring” by 40 per cent to 20 per cent. 

The Labour leader beat him in all areas: agree with +12 per cent, strong +4 per cent, competent + 13 per cent, in touch +16 per cent, interesting (!) + 1 per cent, caring +22 per cent. 

This was just one subjective survey and, yes, the Conservatives continued to have a narrow lead in the early post-conference voting intention polls. But fault lines could be emerging in the Prime Minister’s ratings which the old razzle dazzle won’t tap dance over on its own. 

The Briton’s Protection is so named because it was used by military recruiting officers, not because of Peterloo. Just as well. There would be little point in asking Boris Johnson which side he would have been on that day in history. 

For now, jovial confusion rules.