Political party conferences have, in recent years, felt like an empty ritual. They used to be convened in seaside towns, so grassroots activists could find affordable accommodation. Now they are usually held in cities, so lobbyists can find better restaurants. Activists have been supplanted by members of the political class who are charged £500 a ticket. In the fringe debates, speakers face a volley of questions from people paid to ask them — on pensions, subsidies for green energy and the like. Politicians spend all day talking to journalists, and real politics vanishes.
This year, however, politics has returned. The protesters who shrieked and spat at anyone entering the Tory party conference in Manchester helped remind delegates how things have changed: we’re back to a battle of two competing visions of society. Labour has been captured by a resurgent hard left. When Jeremy Corbyn travelled up to join the protesters, he confirmed the very impression that David Cameron sought to convey. The party of government was inside the conference hall. The party of protest was outside.
Remarkably, the Tory party conference is being attended by Tories again. Some 5,500 activists attended this year, the highest figure in the party’s history and double that of ten years ago. This is not because David Cameron inspired a surge in party membership (he has done quite the reverse), but because so many now believe that the Tories are more likely to be in power for ten years than for five — so it’s worthwhile meeting other Conservatives and comparing notes. The sheer size of the queues in Manchester this week were a sign of a party rejuvenated.
The scenes in Brighton the week before, by contrast, were of a party in its death throes. The Labour party conference held no serious discussion about why the party lost.

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