One newspaper claimed there are 5,000 Lib Dems in Brighton for their conference. Are these hordes in the pubs? Playing fruit machines on the pier? Sunning themselves at the nudie beach? They certainly weren’t jamming the conference hall for day three of a ruthlessly bland affair. Attendance was on a par with a church fete.
‘Do you remember when we had such hopeful young people?’ asked Jane Dodds, her plaintive words echoing in a near-empty hall. Ms Dodds is leader of the Lib Dems in the Welsh Senedd, where they have, er, one member. She leads herself.
Her question was met with a forlorn silence.
There certainly do seem to be fewer 20-somethings than there used to be. Perhaps the young Lib Dems have migrated to the Greens. Who could blame them? Boob-whisperer Polanski may be nuts but at least he has some zip.
The cliches at this conference give you early-onset rigor mortis. Dullards deliver drab speeches. A discussion about the health service dwelt on ‘the horrors of self-dentistry’. The litany of platitudes from earnest wheedlers made the thought of sawing at one’s own canines tempting. At least it would keep you awake.
Speaker after speaker used the word ‘holistic’. ‘Quick fix solutions’ were mentioned by orators of glacial bent. Votes were taken on amendments to motions. ‘Pop your cards down again,’ trilled the chairwoman. She must have said it six times. Pop. Someone pour me a hemlock martini. For 20 minutes literally nothing happened. They had run out of participants. The sound system played pizzicato Vivaldi. It was like being put on hold by Dignitas.
Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Max Wilkinson speaks during the party’s conference in Brighton
Brief respite came with a speech from the party’s home affairs spokesman, Max Wilkinson MP. He swaggered on to Star Wars music, clapping himself.
‘We’re here!’ he cried. Was that the royal ‘we’? His next words: ‘Robert Jenrick, eh? Wot a plonker.’ This caused such gum-sucking delight from the oldies that he said it several more times. Plonker, plonker, plonker. The sign language woman didn’t know what to do with her hands.
Mr Wilkinson kept marching five stiff steps either side of the lectern, like a fully-wound clockwork toy. With a smirk he put on a pair of what he called ‘perv goggles’ to illustrate his opposition to so-called smart glasses.
Pro-EU, pro-immigration Mr Wilkinson fancies himself a bit of a card and challenged Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf to a debate. ‘Or are you a big chicken, Zia?’ he roared.
The ancients marvelled at this bravery. Don’t fall for it, ladies. I sometimes share a Monday-morning train with Wilkinson. One time our carriage was infested by a noisy oik who was making life hell for fellow passengers. My patience snapped and I crossly told the idiot to put a cork in it. Eventually he did, but things became pretty heated. Did macho Max come to my aid? No. He cowered in his seat. Worse than Switzerland.
After another three-hour lunch break the conference got on to dementia. Brian from Kingston had a story about some poor devil who was put in a chair in a windowless room and given no stimulation. How keenly we understood his plight.
In rebuke to Jane Dodds’ comment about there being no youngsters, a 13-year-old grammar schoolgirl, Kitty Dawson, made a speech about online harm. She received a warbling ovation by a party that disapproves of grammar schools.
A speaker from Tewkesbury had earlier simpered about ‘that community-driven love of people that we all have as Lib Dems’.
It was not to last long. At the end of a glacial day everything went a bit magic-mushroomish and snippy with a debate about trans rights. Trans people bellowed their demands to go on using girls’ changing rooms. A couple of delegates resisted this argument but they were slagged off by a pink-haired person who came over all sarcastic and complained that two of her fellow travellers had been ‘misgendered’ – than which there is, apparently, no greater sin. Not always easy to tell, mind you.
