When Geoffrey Cox stood on stage at Conservative conference and gave a speech to introduce Theresa May, the newly appointed Attorney General managed to steal the show. Cox managed to bring the house down with his Mufasa-inspired routine – quoting poetry as he called on members to get behind the Prime Minister.
At Tuesday night’s Onward event – to celebrate the Conservative think tank’s first year – Cox cut a more sombre figure. The Cabinet minister used his speech to address the problems the party finds itself in – deploying some gallows humour along the way:
‘This is the first time I’ve ever addressed a think tank and I’m a bit nonplussed by the experience of seeing so many distinguished, intelligent, intellectually profound… journalists in the audience.
It’s an enormous honour to be invited to speak to this august and esteemed already first birthday party for Onward, I must confess I’m delighted somebody is thinking and relieved that somebody is thinking for the future and the renewal of the Conservative party, because I don’t know about you, but having recently come into the frontline of politics, I have to say that increasingly it feels like a spectacle from the Grand Guignol, in which every scene out competes the last for horror and gruesome sensation.
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