Stephen Tall, the winner of the Lib Dems' blogging competition, hasn't yet delivered his verdict on the speech… at 2.50 pm, two hours after Ming finished speaking. I had a couple of good reasons.
By that time I had spoken with Ros’s Grauniad colleague, Hélène Mulholland, for her ‘What the delegates thought’ focus group, which has been running all week. Here’s her transcription of my phoned-through insta-verdict:
It was a leadership speech. I don't think Menzies is ever going to be the most comfortable frontman and I think it was important he gave us a direction. When people were cheering they were cheering him but also cheering themselves as well. When you look back to January I do not think anyone expected us to be where we are today. I don't think he enjoyed giving it but most people left here feeling united and energised. He is getting more relaxed as he goes on.I had also appeared alongside Matthew Parris on BBC Radio 4’s World at One, which you can listen again to here (about 20 minutes in).
To conclude (or to ‘summate’, as I have now learned after four days of Lib Dem debates a conclusion should apparently be termed): a good speech - solid, not spectacular - but a great conference.
I think most of us would pretty happily have settled for that six days ago.
2 comments:
You came across well I thought, better than Parris, and he's normally good. It was quite satisfying hearing R4 interview people I'd been reading for ages giving their opinion on conference.
Somehow, opinion of "random activist from town I've vaguely heard of" means little. But opinion of Alex Wilcox, Barrie Wodd or y'self means more, despite never having met any of you. Weird little community we've built up.
Thanks, Mat. Yes it was odd putting faces to blogs this last week. Some fitted, others...
Post a Comment