A few days ago I warned Dave that he needed a good dose of Churchill, so to speak, for his conference speech. By accident - well, no-one sensible actually sets their clocks in order to watch a party conference speech even if their social life is as pathetic as mine - I did catch the beginning of Dave's speech and then - quelle horreure! - I ended up sitting down and listening to the whole damn thing. Sometimes I worry about myself!
I will leave it to the clever clogs who do this political commentating for a living to decide on its merits but I, personally, was impressed. It was everything that Miliband's speech was not - well-crafted, comprehensive, detailed and delivered with the right mix of humor and passion. UKIP was given a quick clip round the ear and the message, which cannot be repeated too often in my view, was spelled out - a vote for Farage is a vote for Miliband. Interestingly, he maintained a steady, sustained barrage against the No. 1 enemy - Labour in general, and the two Eds in particular. I think - I hope - that his message to the young, to the workers, to the aspirational might just peel away quite a few Labour-leaning voters.
As far as Europe is concerned, a topic which I suspect is not yet a top priority for most voters, he went as far as he could even if it wasn't quite far enough for me. He has promised an end to open immigration from Europe and also an end to the powers of the Human Rights Court over British law. I hoped that he would go the extra step and promise to support an 'OUT' campaign if he failed to get a satisfactory deal from Brussels-Berlin.
