Jon Walker: Cameron makes the best of a difficult situation

Oct 3 2008 By Jon Walker

David Cameron’s visit to Birmingham was supposed to be his chance to shine.

The parties are usually guaranteed the media spotlight during their annual conferences.

The leader’s speech gets top billing in the news bulletins, and the whole event is an opportunity to explain who they are and what they stand for.

If all goes well, they can expect a bit of a bump in the opinion polls – as Labour enjoyed following their conference last week – even if it proves to be short lived.

But it didn’t work out quite like that for Mr Cameron and his party, as they held their annual event at the International Convention Centre.

The malfunctioning financial markets were already set to become a key theme of the event, not least because Gordon Brown made them central to his argument for remaining Prime Minister when he spoke in Manchester last week.

Only a man of experience can be trusted to lead the country in times of crisis, according to Mr Brown.

But new developments this week overshadowed the Tory event.

There was the nationalisation of Bradford and Bingley, after another British bank (and a bigger name than Northern Rock) found itself unable to trade.

And then there was the rejection by the US House of Representatives of George Bush’s plan to bail out the banks by taking problem debts, such as sub-prime mortgages, off their hands.

The result was that the Conservative conference was overshadowed by events elsewhere. George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, even left Birmingham on Tuesday for talks with the Chancellor in London.

But this may not have been a complete disaster for the Conservatives.

It ensured any tendency party activists or MPs may have to adopt a triumphalist tone, looking forward a little too much to trashing Gordon Brown at the next election, was curbed.

One thing Mr Cameron wanted to avoid above anything else was giving the public the impression that Conservatives are taking their votes for granted. “Don’t be complacent” is that mantra at Conservative central office.

The economic crisis also provided an opportunity for the Tory leader to appear statesmanlike, offering to put party politics aside and work in partnership with Gordon Brown to work out how to protect British banks.

His comment on Tuesday, that he wanted to ensure what happened in the US could not happen here, arguably does not stand up to scrutiny.

Partisan wrangling in America’s House of Representatives scuppered George Bush’s planned bail-out of the banks.

However, the political system in the UK is very different, and Gordon Brown doesn’t actually need Tory support to get measures through the Commons as long as Labour MPs are willing to back him.

Despite this, Mr Cameron’s statement was probably in keeping with the mood of the country, and amounted to an offer Mr Brown cannot refuse without looking churlish.

It also helps to neutralise the Prime Minister’s claim that the Tory leader is a “novice” who does not know how to support the economy, by effectively making him a partner in whatever the Government does.

The danger for Mr Cameron is it limits his ability to criticise the Government. In his keynote speech to the party conference on Wednesday, he tried to have it both ways – promising to support the Prime Minister, and criticising him at the same time.

His explanation is that the need for co-operation between the parties does not mean suspending democracy, and democracy means the opposition should point out the Government’s faults as it sees them.

Voters may accept this, but there is nonetheless a notable (and perhaps unavoidable) inconsistency between his call for unity and his criticism of Mr Brown.

Overall, however, the Conservatives have made the best of a difficult situation and ran a successful conference in awkward circumstances.

Their visit to Birmingham could very easily have become a disaster if they had adopted the wrong tone as the global economy teetered on the brink. But Mr Cameron can look back on his week at the ICC with satisfaction.