It was a terrible moment for Britain”, he said. “People looting shops, burning cars. It even happened right by my old school.”
Not many other speakers in Liverpool, however, dwelt on the riots. And I was surprised we didn’t hear more about them during Labour’s conference.
But, I’m told, it will be different at the Conservative Party’s conference in Manchester. David Cameron, I’m reliably informed, is planning a post-riot fightback at his conference.
Although I doubt if we will hear the Prime Minister say: “It even happened right by my old school.” I don’t recall much rioting in Eton High Street, Young Cameron didn’t join the Bullingdon Club until he went to Oxford University.
A few weeks ago, in the first of two exchanges with Cameron at Prime Minister’s Questions in September, Ed Miliband said “Fair play to him”, referring to the PM’s early return from his holiday in Tuscany to deal with the August riots.
But I also doubt whether the Labour leader will be saying “Fair play to him” after a week in which the Prime Minister is likely to use the riots as a prop for more sermonising about his “Big Society” crusade. I’m told that in the weeks since the riots, the PM’s chief pointy-head in Number 10, his bicycle-riding policy guru Steve Hilton, has been bending Cameron’s ear about how the riots present the Prime Minister and the coalition Government with an opportunity.
Hilton, I’m told, has been looking at how the French President Nicolas Sarkozy responded to the Paris riots in 2005. So, in the Prime Minister’s speech on Wednesday, I expect we’ll hear a lot about “fixing broken Britain” and how the “Big Society” is the key to rebuilding a country torn apart by the riots.
The other big speech in Manchester will be from George Osborne. Will he unveil a Plan B? I doubt it.
Another memorable moment at the Labour conference was when Ed Balls, in a powerhouse speech that reminded me of the ones we used to hear a few years ago from his friend and mentor Gordon Brown, said: “Call it Plan A plus, call it Plan B, call it Plan C. I don’t care what they call it. Britain just needs a plan that works.”
I doubt if Osborne will call his recovery plan any of those. But I do expect him to announce a stimulus plan aimed at boosting growth in the economy. I wouldn’t be surprised, either, if Osborne plundered some of the points of the five-point plan unveiled by Balls in Manchester, despite the Tories initially denouncing it as a £20 billion spending spree. Affordable homes? Jobs for young people? Investment projects? Tax breaks for small firms? These are moves that could be introduced by any Chancellor –Labour or Conservative,
The other speech to look out for in Manchester, I’m told by Tory insiders, will be that of Iain Duncan Smith. Perhaps we will at last hear “the ‘Quiet Man’ turning up the volume”.
Some Conservative MPs are sceptical about IDS’s welfare reform plans and worry that they’re too expensive.
IDS is also a key player in the coalition’s reaponse to the August riots. Many Tory MPs I’ve spoken to during the summer recess think the idea of taking away the benefits of riots and booting them out of their council house or flat is barmy. It doesn’t solve the problems of anti-social or criminal behaviour, these MPs argue. It just shifts the problem somewhere else.
I’m old enough to remember when IDS was a Maastricht Treaty rebel. I’ll never forget the Tory conference in Brighton in 1992 when, six months to the day after John Major won a general election with a majority of 21, Norman Tebbit shamelessly milked the applause of the party faithful after a speech that ripped into Major on Europe.
These days IDS is a fully signed up member of David Cameron’s coalition Cabinet. But there are plenty of backbench Tory MPs, many of them from the 2010 intake, who are ready to make trouble for Cameron on Europe in Liverpool.
Mark Pritchard, the pushy right-winger who’s a member of the 1922 Committee executive, has formed a one-man awkward squad with his demands for an in-out referendum on Europe – although, in fairness to him, he does have a number of equally stroppy allies on the Tory backbenches.
I don’t expect Cameron or William Hague to take a blind bit of notice of the pesky Pritchard and his chums, however. They’ve conceded as much as they’re going to on Europe to the Tory right. But that doesn’t mean the hard men of the right won’t make a lot of noise in Manchester.
I expect to hear a lot of whingeing from Tory right-wingers about too many concessions to the Liberal Democrats inside the coalition. I can’t help noticing, however, that a lot of the moaners are MPs who are fed up because they weren’t made ministers.
If you’re looking for a darling of the Right inside the Cabinet, look no further than Liam Fox, the prickly Defence Secretary, who described Cameron at a lunch with political journalists recently as a “good leader of the coalition” rather than a good leader of the Conservative Party.
Despite the problems presented by the riots and the economy, the leader of the Conservative Party enters his second autumn party conference as Prime Minister with pretty good poll ratings.
Unlike Manchester, we won’t hear much – if anything – about the Bullingdon Club. But we will hear a lot about the riots and the “Big Society” fightback.
