Review of Tory party conference

Presentation wise David Cameron's speech was pretty impressive especially given his ability to speak without notes for 70 minutes. Content wise it offered nothing new, indeed like many other speeches of Cameron it was full of soundbites but little in the way of substance. Still the Tory party have come up with some new policies this week(or been forced to with an election seemingly on the horizon). The policy about inheritance tax seems to me more about shoring up the Tory vote then reaching out to middle England, large windfalls will benefit some but I happen to believe there are better ways to spend the money. Over the term of the Labour government the inheritance tax levels have been raised far above inflation. The other proposal in relation to stamp duty to me is relatively minor, I would have much preferred the Tories to have committed themselves to providing more affordable housing including shared ownership. In the scheme of things stamp duty is relatively minor and no doubt house prices would go up as a result wiping out any saving. The high price is of much more concern to my generation as the rate of stamp duty. Certainly the level of stamp duty was of relatively minor concern when I bought my house a few years.

The conference did go relatively well for the Tories, even they would not embark on a kamikaze mission with an election seemingly about to be called, it would no doubt have been a very different story if this had been a normal conference year. The Tories will inevitably get some boost in the polls from the conference but it will be a relatively minor one at that. Unless the polls are disastrous after conference then it's very likely an election will be called next week.

The other point that has been a talking point was Gordon Brown's visit to Iraq. I happen to believe that it was right given that many of our troops are serving out there and that as a government we give them our full support. Clearly once an election was called a visit would be out of the question, indeed as Prime Minister he still has duties to perform and supporting our soldiers is one of them. The remarks of Dr Liam Fox yesterday were nothing sort of disgraceful in condemning the Prime Minister for saying so few words last week and for visiting Iraq, I'm sure the visit would have received a lot less coverage if had not been for those remarks from Dr Liam Fox and the return of Sir John Major.

Still we may soon be off to the polls and if it turns out to be a good night for Gordon Brown it could be the last conference speech from David Cameron though reading through various remarks on other blogs the likely survival threshold for Cameron surviving has been set very low. The truth is that they have relatively few alternatives as leader.