Chris Hossack: We need a CPAC in the UK

Chris Hossack, a councillor on Brentwood Borough Council, looks at the value of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington.

For those who can see beyond the NRA hype, the tasteless albeit humorous T shirts and bumper stickers and the ‘Coulteresque side shows’, there is some very serious debate, discussion and business being carried out at the Conservative Political action Conference (CPAC).

Before you are about to consider deriding this long standing Political Action Conference and this defence of it. It might be worth acknowledging some key facts;

CPAC is now in it’s 35th year and the momentum is growing. It is not a Republican Party Conference, it is a meeting of Conservative minds.

This is no fringe event either, the ‘Leader of the Free World’ and his Deputy and key advisors all address this conference. Republican candidates avoid CPAC at their peril. It is part of the mainstream of the Conservative Republican movement in the best and largest democracy in the West. Like it or not.

Being an American event, one can and should expect a certain amount of exuberance from it’s delegates, not something we Brits often feel comfortable around, but forget your preconceptions for a moment and look and listen to what is being said, because you will not find it here in Britain.