Tories 'Bomb Middle England' - by Banksy

News from the Conservative Party conference about government plans to abolish child benefit for higher earners is neatly summed up by graffiti artist Banksy in his picture Bomb Middle England, in which fizzing bombs are being propelled towards the target on a bowling green:

What a peculiar Tory conference backdrop, Part 2: What do the flags mean?

In a post during last year's Conservative Party conference - What a peculiar Tory conference backdrop - I reported being baffled by what the leafy suburbs that kept moving backwards and forwards behind the speakers ware supposed to be telling us.

This year's backdrop (above) certainly looks slicker, but two aspects of it have got me as stumped as i was last year.

One is that the blue striped background (especially when appearing in close-up behind a speaker) reminds me of the Greek national flag, raising the possibility that the subliminal message is something along the lines of: if we don't do what we say, we'll end up with as big a financial mess as Greece.

The other is the question of why the Union Flag on the right is split up into tatty-looking fragments? Is this supposed to be telling us something about the broken society, or what?

Whatever the answers, the main distraction is essentially the same as last year, namely why are they taking the risk of diverting our attention away from what's being said by posing such intriguing mysteries for us to think about when we're supposed to be listening?

Delayed applause for William Hague's boast about being in government

Well, well well - this year's party conference season gets curiouser and curiouser when it comes to audiences delaying applause at key points where you might have expected them to show more instant and enthusiastic agreement.

It took the Liberal Democrats 2-3 seconds to get their hands apart for positive references to the coalition government by Nick Clegg (HERE) and Vince Cable (HERE).

The Labour Party withheld applause altogether when Ed Miliband said that he aimed to "shape the centre ground of politics" and then delayed their applause for his second set of warm words about the 'centre ground' (HERE)

Yesterday, when William Hague reminded the Conservative Party that this was the first time since 1996 that they'd met as the party of government, it took them the best part of 3 seconds to respond - even though 'boasts about us' have a tremendous track record when it comes to triggering applause in political speeches (for more on which, see HERE).