Rob Wilson's Westminster Diary, October 1, 2009

Rob Wilson MP • Published 2 Oct 2009 15:00 0 Comments

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TWO party conferences down, only one to go.

Neither has gone well so far, the Liberal Democrats were all over the place and couldn't stop arguing with each other. It started off with Nick Clegg promising "savage" cuts in public services and ended with Chris Huhne having to rewrite his speech because he accused William Hague of being a right-wing skin head in the draft released to the press.

As one commentator put it, they don't know if they are turning right or turning left, but they are turning nasty. Even the so-called economic sage, Vince Cable, came up with the "mansion tax", tuning into a bit of old-style class warfare. Under scrutiny it fell apart within minutes; didn't the Lib Dems want to abolish property taxes such as the council tax? How would it be valued? Who would value it? And so it went on, it was hopeless.

The Labour conference had all the characteristics of a wake, with the half-empty hall and the feeling that someone had died. As it turned out the thing that had died was the Sun newspaper's support for Labour. 'Labour has Lost It' screamed the headline, the day after the Prime Minister's address to his Party. The Sun of course is merely reflecting the view of its readers, who have deserted Labour in droves. In fact, the Sun stuck with Labour far longer than anyone could or should have expected.

The Prime Minister's view was that people decide elections not newspapers; quite right. But he doesn't seem to understand that it is Sun readers who have changed the editorial policy and they are voters and their judgement is coming very soon!

I'm not sure how our conference will go, I suppose it could be as desolate as the other parties'. The press certainly isn't very sympathetic to politicians at the moment. But, whatever happens, the business of being the local MP has continued throughout the summer. I have taken the opportunity of the longer-than-usual break from Westminster to meet as many of my constituents as possible.

The other day I was trying to count how many I have seen during September and it probably runs into the thousands rather than hundreds.

However, it's back to Westminster shortly and what is predicted to be a highly personal and dirty election campaign.

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