Manchester's conference featured one brilliant innovation for me. The Conservative Party had asked a plethora of leaders from different countries around the world to attend the conference, and then sit down with a number of uk politicians and share ideas. I conducted what are termed "bilaterals" in the proper foreign office vernacular, but to anyone who has ever been single in the last 10 years they smacked of political speed dating.
The meetings took place on Monday and Tuesday mornings for around 3 hours. I was asked to talk about everything from home office policy, to prison reform, to the living wage, to tackling fuel poverty, to pavement politics and the need to use social media....
Each meeting lasted between 15 minutes and an hour. Most countries were represented by several of their key politicians. Like all such events there were a couple of occasions where one of the parties began to flag in their interest (modesty prevents me from spilling the beans, but it is fair to say I was of less interest than some more heavyweight players) whilst, like all speed dating, there were times when the time passed too quickly. We were corralled expertly from meeting to meeting by Lucy and her team from Central office, fuelled by dozens of cups of coffee and too many chocolate biscuits, in a small roofless room next to the press area in the conference centre. As always, at conferences, the venue was not glamorous.
I was transfixed by the tales and discussions with colleagues from Canada, where they clearly have given huge thought to a centre right approach to deficit reduction, immigration, integration and so much more. In return, I explained pavement politics on a super micro level to their stunned amazement. I confidently expect eastern Canada now to turn conservative!
I met with representatives from Iceland (we talked academies), Australia (local government), New Zealand (their chief whip was impressive - and a bit different from Sir George Young), Bermuda, and Norway, where the new centre right government have just won the election so recently that the 3 bright representatives did not even know what jobs they were going to get. All were interesting, full of ideas and a delight to meet. My final meeting was with a wry and funny middle aged male politician from Belarus. He was the only one who needed an interpreter. As he left he gave me a copy of his book which described how he had been imprisoned for over 100 days by the KGB. He took the issues of
freedom, democracy and rule of law very seriously, which given his circumstances was not a surprise.
All were a delight, and I learnt a lot. I cannot wait to have more bilaterals / political speed dates next year.
