Leaders in waiting at last Conservative conference?

This past week thousands of activists headed to the annual Conservative party political conference.  It’s an understatement to say that things didn’t get off to the best of starts. In a 24 hour period preceding the start of their conference Cameron and his team were bystanders as they first witnessed the resignation of Minister Brooks Newmark from sexually lewd online behaviour with an undercover reporter; then the announcement of a defection by yet another MP, Mark Reckless following Douglas Carswell towards UKIP; and finally hours before the start of their annual gathering a withering assessment of their electoral chances from Lord Ashcroft’s latest polling pointing to a significant Labour lead in all the key Labour/Conservative battleground seats at the next General election.

However, in the run up to the next election it’s clear that Labour will not be the only threat to winning a second term. Instead the persistently nagging issue raging within the party is Europe, and that the threat to Cameron and the Conservatives will come from their erstwhile political allies the thousands of defected Conservatives now with UKIP.

In anticipation of the potential loss by the Conservatives to Labour whether or not aided by UKIP the last few conferences have become beauty pageants for possible leadership contenders. Last year saw William Hague and Michael Gove.  This year because of Hague’s retirement and Gove's demotion the field has been narrowed down to three: George Osborne, Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

After a bruising start to the week these three certainly were a popular choice within the hall, although certainly leaders in waiting they were loyally talked up as well oiled warm up acts to the PM’s speech.  But if this was a leadership stump speech what would be the verdict?

May has a commanding authority speaking to delegates, whereas 10 years ago she was vilified by sections of the party and press for labelling the Tories in a self analytical critique ‘the nasty party’; today she is lauded as the longest serving Home Secretary in 50 years -  a previously poisoned chalice position. Crime, policing and immigration as topics are magnetic to the Tory faithful like honey is to bees.  Despite this she surprised most of the floor by being introduced by a young black man who'd been stopped and searched more than twenty times, and then focusing her speech on this issue and combating IS.

Osborne like May has had a dramatic weight drop which often matters in the image obsessed world of media and politics.  He's had good news after good news, on employment, on inflation, on housing, but most of all with media happy to parade the economy as having gone from faltering to recovering. Whether the public can countenance having the Chancellor become PM after the last experience of this is open to question.

Johnson. Or Boris as he is affectionately known is a law unto himself.  As Mayor he has stood against many of his party’s positions, and as an anti politician despite being both privileged and a political operator.  The only other time the hall was bursting with delegates was for the PM’s speech. He used a brick as a prop, jollied up local activists before the long election slog and made a joke at the PM’s expense.  Only Boris can get away with that.  He’s not a particularly gifted orator, but this too makes him more human to large swathes of the electorate.  Whether he can withstand the scrutiny put on Westminster political leaders is an unknown. Being comical and gaffe prone seems to work for Boris in the same way it did for Mayor Rob Ford in Toronto, or Governor Christie in New Jersey.

But as we know a week's a long time in politics. The next 12 months will no doubt separate the pretenders from the leaders.

Ashok Viswanathan