Jonathan Reed: Empty spectacles on the parties’ political stage

The leader’s speech is supposed to be the pinnacle of the conference, a chance to send activists home with a skip in their step. After all, it is the one time of the year that party members get to see and hear from their leader in the flesh

Typically, the scramble for seats leaves hundreds disappointed. This year the most eager conference-goers started queuing as usual several hours before the Prime Minister took to the stage, but there were still several hundred seats vacant by the time Mr Cameron began his speech after a long pre-amble.

But it was not just a Tory problem. Two weeks earlier Nick Clegg faced a similar situation when he addressed the Liberal Democrats in Liverpool with significant parts of the conference hall empty.

And neither is this just an issue with leaders’ speeches. The atmosphere at all three of the main parties’ conferences was noticeably flat this year. Meanwhile the chance for real debate is ever more stifled – just consider the way Treasury Select Committee chairman Andrew Tyrie went from criticising the Government’s growth plans to heaping praise on them after a private word in his ear from Downing Street aides.

Cast your mind back over three weeks and what of significance have we learned?

That a lot of Liberal Democrats really aren’t keen on the Tories – hardly stuff to hold the front page. That Ed Miliband has not yet got a clear policy agenda – something we knew beforehand. And surprise, surprise, Messers Cameron and Osborne are not about to adopt a Plan B on the economy – no change here.

Even when it comes to the big announcements carefully planned to set the agenda, how many are really likely to tip the political balance?

Danny Alexander’s £500m infrastructure fund will help a few projects but is hardly chunky enough the convince those sceptical about Plan A.

Ed Miliband’s plan to cap tuition fees to £6,000 was interesting but how seriously will it be taken if Labour will not even guarantee it featuring in the party’s manifesto? And Tory talk of raising the motorway speed limit to 80mph smacks of gesture politics. Memories of all three leaders’ speeches are already fading fast and it says a lot that a Cabinet row over a cat became one of the stories of the season. It is a far cry from the traditional jamboree by the seaside that used to be the highlight of the political year and gave us iconic political moments like Margaret Thatcher’s “The lady’s not for turning” speech.

More recently, conferences have given us moments which have genuinely changed the game. George Osborne’s pledge to cut inheritance tax and levy a charge on non-doms, backed up David Cameron’s bolshy speech without notes, were almost certainly the crucial factors in averting a snap election in 2007.

And the following year the Tories genuinely changed the game on high-speed rail by pledging a line between London and Leeds at a time when Labour was cool on the idea.

So what happened this year for conference season to lose its sparkle – and has the time come to do things differently? Maybe some of the lack of buzz can be put down to the economic crisis hanging over the country – both in convincing some delegates that a trip to conference is too expensive and in deterring others who had more important things to worry about. The relative job security of each of the party leaders also quells some conference enthusiasm – each may have critics in their own party but none is under serious pressure, unlike Iain Duncan Smith or Gordon Brown who both faced conferences dominated by them fighting for their political lives.

Some also point to the way that conferences have increasingly become dominated by lobbyists, exhibitors and interest groups who often outnumber activists at fringe meetings, but who have little interest in the set-piece speeches in the conference hall.

But maybe the nail in the coffin of the annual conference as we know it is the introduction of fixed-term parliaments.

Barring a coalition break-up, we now know that election day is May 2015. So how can you get excited at a conference three and a half years before going to the polls? And why would you bother splashing out hundreds of pounds to go to it? Critics accuse Ed Miliband of lacking policies and a clear vision, but if he no longer faces the perpetual threat of a snap election, why would he rush to commit to specifics now? And what’s in it for governing parties, other than to simply get through the week?

So maybe it is time to for change. Why not shorter autumn get-togethers in the early years of a Parliament before a rabble-rousing convention in the pre-election year? At least that way parties might have something meaningful to say, activists might be more tempted to go – and leaders’ speeches may become a sell-out once more.