Sketch: Not raving for Cameron
No raving from Cameron today he largely delivered a sombre speech
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Thursday, 08, Oct 2009 06:03
By Matthew West
David Cameron's choreographers have an odd taste in music. It's no surprise they chose the likes of Keane, the Killers or the Wonderstuff to introduce their leader. But surely they were raving mad to go for the Shamen?
Maybe the Conservatives have forgiven the Shamen. Maybe it's OK to have been a bit of a raver in the late 1980s. The leader's speech certainly began a bit like a warehouse rave just with a really, really odd crowd. We had the warehouse, we had the big screens, we had the mixing deck, we had the Shamen's I Can Move Any Mountain - but only the first minute or two. I don't think the party leadership wanted to give the game away just in case Mr C is still hated for saying that E's are Good.
David Cameron speech as-it-happened
David Cameron speech in full
Comment: Cameron sees dark days ahead
Full story: Cameron - you can make it happen
At one point I actually wondered if someone had slipped me a mickey.
One minute it was all doom and gloom on the video screens. There were weird slogans about how Labour were destroying the country. Then it all got a bit trippy as Gordon Brown's face emerged into the gloom only to be taken apart brick by brick by the blue skies of the new Conservatives just waiting to burst through onto the video screens.
I genuinely began to wonder if I was having hallucinations. If so I wasn't the only one. In fact, the whole experience was a bit raving. Someone got to their feet and started to clap in time to the Shamen unable to contain their euphoria. It only ever takes one. Next thing they were all at it.
These guys were in an incredibly merry mood. But the big moment hadn't even happened yet. Clearly they think they're going to win the election.
And then it happened.
William Hague came on stage.
Everyone in the crowd thought for a moment it was the main event. They could barely contain themselves. Part of me wished it was the main event too because by the time Cameron had finished talking all I wanted to do was emigrate. The rave and celebration were, after all, only fleeting moments in a very sombre affair. And the audience looked a little deflated too.
It could be the scale of the task before him it could simply be exhaustion but this was a distinctly below par performance from Cameron.
It might not have helped that he coughed through a significant amount of it. All those champagne suppers were clearly catching up with him. I suggest a couple of early nights with some Horlicks. Burning the candle at both ends isn't doing him any good - after all, he's not as young as he used to be.
There were crowd-pleasers, of course. He gave the assembled delegates the chance to out standing ovation Labour over the armed forces and the tremendous work they are doing in Afghanistan, which they duly did.
He also gave the crowd the chance to jeer and clap when he did his best pantomime performance of anger about how Labour were charging single mums 96 per cent tax in the pound. It was a good punch. He kept punching the lecturn to emphasis a number of his points. But it was by no means a knockout blow. And it wasn't long after this point that the once euphoric crowd began to lose much of their enthusiasm.
Thematically his speech tried to portray him as an average family man but that somewhat fell apart when he reminded everyone that he was from a ridiculously privileged background. He tried to talk in terms of community but his community is Notting Hill! And when he talked about the country he tried to give his vision from atop a mountain, suddenly I was back in Shamen territory. But again it didn't last. Cameron's vision was distinctly unoriginal. It was in fact someone else's entirely. Maggie Thatcher still rules over the Conservative party with an iron ideological fist. This grand old lady is still not for turning it's just the PR spin is usually much, much better.