Party! Party!! Party!!! Pre-election Conference fever

CATHY REAY WITH THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS IN BOURNEMOUTH

Nick Clegg’s right-hand man and favoured politician Vince Cable MP told a 6,000-strong crowd in Bournemouth that “if ever there was a time for the Liberal Democrats, this is it”. Drip-fed with the words “time for change” and “ready to win”, some delegates seemed skeptical the party could live up to their word.

For starters, Cable’s controversial announcement of huge spending cuts created fear among disabled delegates who questioned the party’s commitment to social care and mental health, both of which the party has previously singled out for very costly reform.

But Treasury spokesman Cable said spending cuts in mental health wouldn’t be considered lightly. “I want to approach mental health in a systematic way and not just allow people to make cuts across the board,” he told Disability Now.

Norman Lamb MP, the party’s health spokesman, said that regardless of spending cuts the party wants to deliver promises in this area. “One in four of us in this country suffer from a mental health problem at some stage in our lives. This is about recognising that a lot of the money that has gone into the health service hasn’t been well-used.”

Lamb said he wanted to review health quangos staff numbers. He told Disability Now: “There are 25,000 people working in health quangos who are not delivering services. We need to cut things like this down to free up resources.”

Greg Mulholland, MP for Leeds North-West and a member of the party’s health team, said it is imperative to get social care, particularly for disabled people, on the political agenda. “It is underfunded and undervalued and the challenge now is how that can change in the next parliament.”

But Cable and Clegg, united in their plight to reduce Britain’s debt, came under fire from their own MPs while at conference, as several claimed they hadn’t been consulted by the party leaders about cuts in their areas. Although the furore wasn’t concerned with health or disability, by the end (fittingly on the only day of rain) the atmosphere had soured to the point where the party seemed more divided than united.

It raises the question whether, in the (however unlikely) event of the Lib Dems winning the next general election, the party is able to present and deliver a coherent and united message, and whether, after hacking their way through each department, they could live up to their big promises on stabilising mental health and social care.

SUNIL PECK WITH LABOUR IN BRIGHTON

The sun-kissed Labour conference kicked off amid the furore caused by Andrew Marr pressing Gordon Brown on the state of his mental health on TV. Brown denied that he was on medication, but the fact that Marr’s question provoked such a backlash from Downing Street illustrates how much of a taboo mental illness still is in Westminster – even though the main parties have pledged their support for tackling the negative attitudes that can prevent people with physical and mental impairments standing for parliament.

I’d been looking forward to asking what other disabled people at conference thought, but I didn’t stumble upon many and when I did bump into a disabled person, it was when one of us was in too much of a rush to talk.

I managed a quick exchange with the Minister for Disabled People who, for what it’s worth, thought that Marr had overstepped the mark.

The future of the social care system cropped up at a lot of the fringe meetings I attended, but there was no consensus among delegates about how to fund a fairer system. I was at a lot of the fringes attended by the care services minister Phil Hope, but he kept his thoughts under his hat.

No fringe meeting passed without a Labour politician trotting out a list of policy achievements and warning of the dire consequences of a Tory victory in the general election.

In the pick of the fringes, organised by Every Disabled Child Matters, disabled young people quizzed ministers on what action is being taken to make the education system more inclusive and simplify the process for applying for Disability Living Allowance (DLA).

The politicians spectacularly failed to engage with them and responded by – you’ve guessed it – talking about what had already been done to advance equality. The feeling among the youngsters I spoke to afterwards was that the politicians had talked nonsense and that they had not been inspired to vote for them.

Meanwhile, outside the conference centre, Phil Davies, the GMB National Secretary for Remploy, said that of the two and a half thousand Remploy employees who lost their jobs when the factories were closed, 80 per cent of them are still unemployed. This, let’s not forget, at a time when Remploy managers shared bonuses worth more than £1.5 million.

He did not know what the consequences of a Tory election victory would be for the future of Remploy, but he did point out that unlike Labour, they had not closed any factories when they had been in government before.

PAUL CARTER WITH THE CONSERVATIVES IN MANCHESTER

Much talk ahead of the conference had been around the need to avoid being seen as too triumphalist, wary of the fate that has notoriously and infamously befallen leaders of other parties ahead of anticipated victories; notably Neil Kinnock’s tubthumping performance at a rally prior to John Major’s unexpected victory in 1992, and David Steel prematurely telling delegates at the Liberal Party conference in 1981 to “go back to your constituencies and prepare for government.”

It had clearly worked. Rumours of a three-line whip telling MPs to moderate their festivities were rife. Reports of a ban on champagne emerged (though several senior Tories, including David Cameron were seen to be flouting that particular edict).

Though the atmosphere was certainly convivial, the whole atmosphere surrounding the conference felt moderately more subdued than in previous years, though this arguably could be down to the nature of the policy announcements – with much talk of “difficult times” and “tough choices”.

Disability featured unusually highly on the lips of delegates in Manchester’s hotel lobbies and bars, with the agenda being dominated by a policy announcement early on.

On the first day of the conference, shadow chancellor George Osborne announced wide-ranging plans to reform the welfare system, with one of the key proposals being the plan to retest all 2.6 million people on Incapacity Benefit for their fitness for employment, and those deemed able to work would, under a Tory government, be moved onto Jobseekers Allowance.

The policy appeared popular with members on the ground, although the commonness of the belief that the system is riddled with cheats and scroungers, despite the facts stating otherwise, was at times unnerving.

However, Mark Harper, the shadow minister for disabled people, was keen to stress that the proposal was not merely a punitive one, and that plenty of support would be made available to help people back into work, while continuing to look after those unable to do so.

“The whole point of this process is that support will be provided which gives them the opportunity of a better life, not being in a group that are poorer, and giving them the same opportunities as everybody else,” he said.

What did feel apparent is that the Conservatives are willing to have disability issues nearer the top of the political agenda, and not as a minority issue. There were many delegates who were “disability savvy”, and all of the fringe events connected with disability, such as those on personalisation of care services, or the future of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, were well-attended by vociferous delegates.

Obviously, there is the small matter of a general election to be overcome first before the champagne corks can finally be popped. If the Conservatives are successful, disabled people will be watching with interest to see if David Cameron’s “modern conservatism” will really bring the change the party
is promising.