Less than a million now in Tory Conference Queue

Iain Dale has posted a fascinating insight into life in the queue for a pass to get into Conservative Party Conference from a would-be delegate starting their third day waiting, and waiting and waiting.

The embarrassment of having activists, delegates, journalists and even ambassadors queuing endlessly for clearance to get in has certainly wiped the smirk from the faces of those who highlighted delays last week at the Labour Party Conference.

I hope Iain will forgive me for lifting his photo of the Tory queue which I find faintly reminiscent of the highly effective "Labour Isn't Working" poster which helped Maggie Thatcher become PM in 1979.

The poster purported to illustrate the one million on the dole under the Callaghan Government. Once elected, Mrs T's policies ripped the heart out of British manufacturing, quadrupled the dole queue to four million and delivered the two worst recessions since the Second World War.

Maybe for the next election, Labour should have a poster illustrating the extra million people in work since 1997 - more than 100,000 of them here in the East Midlands.

It's ironic that now have a stable economy and almost full employment - nine years into a Labour Government - that this week Cameron and the Tories are talking about the importance of a stable economy.

They want us to think that boom and bust, Black Wednesday, spiralling interest rates, and four million on the dole had nothing to do with them...

They'll be telling us we need Prudence next!

But back to the issue of security...

It all changed a generation ago when the IRA almost wiped out the British PM and her Cabinet when they bombed the Grand Hotel at Brighton.

Today it has had to change again in light of the current terrorist threat.

The easy reaction now would be to cancel political Conferences.

But that would be giving the terrorists exactly what they want by destroying an essential part of the British democratic process.