Having seen shadow Chancellor George Osborne and shadow Home Secretary in action at the Tory Party Conference, an uninspiring voice from from the past started to echo in my mind: Sir Geoffrey (now Lord) Howe.
The encouraging news for Messrs Osborne and Grayling is that, apart from his devastating resignation speech that marked the beginning of the end for Mrs Thatcher (HERE), he wasn't known for his electrifying oratory either and it didn't stop him from getting senior jobs in the cabinet.
Conference's luke warm response to taxing booze
I particularly enjoyed the delayed applause and below average 6 seconds of applause (for more on which see HERE & HERE) for some of Mr Grayling's plans for clamping down on the booze culture.
Whether this was the result of poor scripting, poor delivery or because the such down-market drinks didn't resonate with the audience is a matter for conjecture.
GRAYLING:
So let me set out for you in more detail our plan to introduce big increases in the tax on super strength alcohol.
We’ll increase the price of a four pack of super strength lager by £1.33
We will more than double tax on super strength cider.
And our planned increase on alcopops will raise the price of a large bottle by £1.50.
Not changes that will affect responsible drinkers.
Not changes that will affect the ordinary pint in the pubs.
And we’ll make sure for those of you- those parts of the country with traditional producers that we protect local traditional products
But we'll call time on the drinks that fuel antisocial behaviour.
(1 second silence)
(6 seconds of applause)
Does YouTube oppose the Tories and support UKIP?
While checking to see which of today’s speeches from the Conservative Party confeence had been posted on YouTube, I typed ‘tory party conference speech 2009’ into the search box.
As you'll see HERE, in the list of 22 videos on the first page of its response, eighteen were from the UKIP conference, one was of Gordon Brown, one of Nick Griffin (BNP) and one was a clip of Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics show.
The only Tory was chairman Eric Pickles with a trailer to the conference featuring clips from speeches by Margaret Thatcher.
Does this mean that political bias against the Conservatives and in favour of UKIP is built into way the YouTube search box works, or does it just reflect the number of times words like ‘tory’, ‘party’, ‘conference’ and ‘speech’ were mentioned by UKIP speakers at their conference?
Are there any geeks out there who can explain what it all means?
As you'll see HERE, in the list of 22 videos on the first page of its response, eighteen were from the UKIP conference, one was of Gordon Brown, one of Nick Griffin (BNP) and one was a clip of Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics show.
The only Tory was chairman Eric Pickles with a trailer to the conference featuring clips from speeches by Margaret Thatcher.
Does this mean that political bias against the Conservatives and in favour of UKIP is built into way the YouTube search box works, or does it just reflect the number of times words like ‘tory’, ‘party’, ‘conference’ and ‘speech’ were mentioned by UKIP speakers at their conference?
Are there any geeks out there who can explain what it all means?
The barmy Tory backdrop disappears & reappears
The speaker a few moments ago at the Tory Party conference was the shadow minister for Culture, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt MP, who exposed something the designers of the barmy backdrop hadn't taken into account.
Hunt opted for the management guru style of delivery - i.e. walking about the platform pretending not to have a script (for more on which see HERE)
As a result, the leafy suburban backdrop kept disappearing as he walked from side to side, making the whole thing seem even barmier than yesterday - especially when camera angle changes revealed a row of delegates sitting on white armchairs suspended in the trees behind him.
Hunt opted for the management guru style of delivery - i.e. walking about the platform pretending not to have a script (for more on which see HERE)
As a result, the leafy suburban backdrop kept disappearing as he walked from side to side, making the whole thing seem even barmier than yesterday - especially when camera angle changes revealed a row of delegates sitting on white armchairs suspended in the trees behind him.
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