ConservativeHome's Bournemouth 2006 Conference blog

Adrian Owens: BBC positive about David Cameron but other commentators unsure of reaction of party activists and the wider public

David Cameron’s speech led the main 10pm news tonight, as we would expect.  The coverage though was shorter than last night, at just 5 minutes.

Those around the Leader will not be worried about the quantity of the coverage though, because the quality of the coverage was first class in their terms.  Plenty of focus on the passages of the speech that the Leader’s team would have wanted covered – commitment to the NHS in particular.  Cameron’s advisers will have been more than happy too with Nick Robinson’s commentary talking of the “new direction” for the party and creating a “new mood”.  The BBC obviously likes David Cameron, but then we suspected that already.

A more uncertain note was sounded when political commentators were interviewed about how those at conference were reacting to this “new direction”.  Anne McElvoy thought that activists had been won over.  Benedict Brogan was less positive.  Matthew Parris shrewdly hedged his bets and said he felt that conference liked David Cameron personally but was less enamored with his message.

It’s not surprising that the commentators came to different conclusions – partly this is due to David Cameron’s stance of refusing to be tied down to policies too early, but partly it is also due to cruder motives.  None of us really know whether this conference has been a success until we see the first opinion polls in the weeks to come. 

Those at the conference are in an isolated bubble where group think can set in and a rosy picture prevail, while those of us unable to attend this year have our view mediated through channels such as the BBC.  The truth is, none of us know for certain what the wider reaction will be.  Wise heads such as Matthew Parris hedge their bets.  Meanwhile we eagerly await that crucial first opinion poll to pour over the movements in party fortunes like ancient soothsayers poured over the entrails of sacrificed animals.

Adrian Owens: BBC coverage stuck in a groove

Tuesday 3rd October 2006.
BBC TV news at 6:00pm.

Conference-related coverage on the main 10 o’clock BBC news bulletin lasted around 7 minutes – more than 25% of the total bulletin.  Not bad in our sound-bite obsessed times.

What a pity then that the BBC continue to rehash old stories.  Tonight almost half the coverage was taken up with an item on William Hague’s attempts to forge a new European grouping to rival the EPP.  This gave Mark Mardell the excuse to spend some license payers' money trotting off to the Czech Republic and then Poland, first to interview the party’s new Czech allies and then to sneer at the very traditional stance on certain social issues of the Polish Justice and Peace party even though they were explicitly excluded from Hague’s grouping.  Viewers would however have been forgiven for making a link between the British Conservatives and this Polish party – but then that was no doubt the purpose.

The remaining three or so minutes were taken up with some film of George Osborne’s conference speech focusing again on tax; a minute or so on Boris’s latest gaffe which David Cameron deftly shrugged off:  “What do you do with a problem like Boris?”, he said; and a minute or so with Nick Robinson interviewing once again, you’ve guessed it, David Cameron.  Where was the interview with George Osborne?  After all, according to the Beeb yesterday, the party was rowing about tax - surely they wanted to question the Shadow Chancellor?

The contrast with Sky’s coverage was quite marked today.  Firstly Sky covered an interview with a frontbencher other than the leader. Then in their interview with George Osborne, Adam Boulton asked the Shadow Chancellor whether he believed that lower taxes boosted economic growth.  When Osborne answered in the affirmative, Boulton proceeded to give Osborne a sticky time over what he then perceived to be an illogical stance taken by our Treasury spokesman.  The interview kept my interest because Boulton asked a question that a Conservative supporter would have been itching to ask George Osborne.  When was the last time we could say that of the red-cornered BBC?

Adrian Owens: Increased focus on Cameron the Leader as tax “row” demoted to a “disagreement”

Coverage of the conference on the 10 o’clock news was shunted from the lead story position by the school shootings in Pennsylvania, but the length of coverage was extended considerably over the 6 o’clock edition. 

It was noticeable too that the BBC’s efforts to turn the tax issue into a tax “row” as they had labeled it in the 6pm edition had failed to stick, and they reverted simply to referring to disagreements over tax.

The coverage included coverage of the Lord Tebbit fringe meeting covered at 6pm with the former party chairman making the moral case for lower taxation.  Michael Fabricant was prominent in the audience – perhaps he is one of the 100 MPs referred to by Edward Leigh.

Two party members interviewed by the BBC at the end of the fringe meeting both wanted prominent tax cut pledges.  One of these correctly identified the need to build an election-winning coalition that included plumbers, Mondeo man etc – what ConservativeHome has termed the “strivers”.

There was then a short soundbite from Edward Leigh before 3-4 minutes that focused on Huw Edwards shadowing David Cameron through the conference day.  This part of the coverage was very favourable to the party and our leader.  Edwards asked single questions of Cameron in different venues around conference, and the format followed meant that there was no opportunity for supplementary questions.  The questions covered cash for peerages, the diversity of parliamentary candidates and David Cameron’s privileged upbringing.  We learned little new, but it was positive mood music. 

Two school-age wannabe journalists were filmed questioning the leader and arguably achieved a better result than Mr Edwards in extracting the statement that David Cameron intends to send his children to state schools.

The coverage concluded with Huw Edwards discussing the day with Nick Robinson.  Nick Robinson took a similar line to that he took in the 6pm edition, basically stating that David Cameron would welcome the disagreement with the “right” as it allowed him to underline his claims to have moved to the “centre ground” while dismissing the ability of those arguing for explicit tax cuts to change current policy.

The BBC approach to the tax issue is clearly that only “the right” wants lower tax.  There is no questioning of the need to reduce the disincentive to strive produced by marginal tax rates close to 70% for many in receipt of child tax credits.  Simpler to present it as a row between a “moderate” leader and “old” party activists (yes, the usual close-ups of retired party members in the conference hall were used yet again).  The Corporation’s thinking does not even seem to have caught up with the prevailing mood among contributors to the tax debate on their own BBC news website.

If BBC journalists actually read the 1979 Conservative manifesto then our leader might not have such an easy ride in future interviews.  David Cameron is undoubtedly wise to avoid any specific tax commitments at this stage of a Parliament, but some of the language he used today risks exposing the party on its right flank – something Nick Robinson commented upon in concluding tonight’s coverage.  Worryingly, he suggested that some people close to the Leadership felt that this was a risk well worth taking.