Tory conference is so stage-managed these days that the main hall has long felt like a bit of a sideshow compared to the lively debate on the fringes and the packed bars. That’s been true so far this week, and not just because the ‘main hall’ is just a small area of the convention centre, so small you can hear the chatter of delegates buying clothes and jam at neighbouring stalls while ministers are trying to speak.
This hasn’t gone down all that well with some ministers, who’ve been able to hear raucous applause from fringe meetings as they’ve been giving their own speeches to a less-than-packed hall.
Not everyone has even got a speech: some Secretaries of State have been relegated to something called a ‘panel discussion’, which looks more like a scripted dialogue than the sort of debate you might expect on the fringe.
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