Bournemouth diary

Special report: Conservative party conference 2000

Kevin Maguire
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday October 3 2000 01.27 BST

• Believing in Britain, the Tories' rallying cry for the week, marks a determined effort by William Hague to reclaim the union flag from Tony Blair. Party apparatchiks only agreed on the slogan to launch Hague's tilt at No 10 after a Central Office row over two alternatives. The first, Ambitious for Britain, was judged too "young man" for Hague by advisers who feared the Tory leader would sound vacuous. The second, Ready to Govern, invited unfavourable com parisons with David Steel's ill-judged advice to Alliance activists in the eighties to return to their constituencies and prepare for government. So the Tories plumped for Believing in Britain and, in an historic bit of dithering, Hague yesterday used the others during interviews.

• How far big business has deserted the Tories is evident from a stroll through Willieville. With 75 stands, the Conservative exhibition area is smaller than that of the Liberal Democrats a fortnight ago, and less than half the size of Labour last week ,with Virgin, Transco and Railtrack among those not bothering to make the Bournemouth pilgrimage. The total would be even more pathetic if it had not been inflated by 13 party sites.

• Euro MP Bill Newton-Dunn has become the man with no name, airbrushed out in true Stalinist style. The Tory whip in Brussels was mysteriously withdrawn last week after he challenged Hague's bid to make 3p on or off a litre of petrol the fundamental dividing line in British politics. Alas a stand for Willieville, listing 36 Conservative Euro MPs, was already built and paid for. Yesterday it contained 35 names and one strip of white paper.

• More on that funky 3D set intended to give a disco edge to a party more at home with tea dances. The backdrop was designed by Michael Lockett who last sprung to public prominence over his role organising the millennium dome's very successful (not) opening night. Sir Humphrey told Jim Hacker in Yes, Minister that if he had a good speech to make it against a plain background and a bad one in front of many shapes to distract the audience.

• This week's diary U-turn competition has opened and closed after the Sun, which two conferences ago portrayed Hague as a dead parrot, yesterday urged readers not to underestimate him.