We're witnessing the slow, painful death of Conservatism and the irony is that most think they’re speaking an alien language
For most people outside of the ‘Westminster Bubble’, they will tilt their heads like a confused mastiff if you start talking to them about the National Conservatism Conference.
Most will have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
Most stories written about the conference itself have amounted to nothing and I fully expect this article to drop off the radar almost as quickly as almost every other article written about it, too. If it’s even seen, let alone read.
Paradoxically, this is actually a good thing.
On social media, there has been little engagement, reaction or interest; hindered by the fact that the NatCons themselves have sabotaged engagement by controlling every aspect of its coverage - whether it is by banning journalists and writers, making ticket applications almost impossible, or refraining from the usual approach of broadcasting a live stream of events or even offering records and transcriptions of speeches.
It’s a curious thing about the conference that despite its conflated sense of self-importance, its orchestration, its range of guest speakers, and the fact that the shindig itself likely cost an exorbitant amount to throw, that its organisers sought to draw so little attention to it. So little, in fact, that almost every speaker was greeted by an empty room - often, where they were confronted by more journalists than bondafide golden ticket holders themselves.
Yet for months, this event was being treated as a pivotal moment in the Conservative political calendar, and an event that bridged the gap in the relationship between US and British Conservatism; a mobilisation, really, of ultra-Right forces in the run-up to what is likely to be a dramatic next couple of years in politics - both here and in the US.
The lack of interest that people actually have in this story and event - something that was so pivotal to the Conservatives’ as perhaps their last, cross-Atlantic hopes of joint, ultra-right mobilisation - is actually a very quiet metaphor for the death of Modern Western Conservatism in its most horrific, some say fascist form.
For all the noise that existed within the bubble, nobody outside of it really cared. At least not in any real, intrinsic or consequential way.
From this, we can derive many reassurances: