But the first speaker was former spin-doctor Derek Draper, who challenged all those present to consider whether they would have preferred the Tories to win. Meekly, speakers from the floor complained of redundancies in third level education, a failure on the part of the government to listen to women and an unhealthy alliance with media baron Rupert Murdoch. With a gulp, the audience took this new dispensation and moderated their claims. Anthony Barnett, one-time director of the constitutional reform group Charter 88, chided Draper to the effect that he was underselling New Labour, whose great innovations in devolution would be topped only by proportional representation. An enduring theme of the conference was Tony Blair's 'populism'.
Populism is a bad thing.
But popularity is good. Populism is defined as Blair saying something popular with which the critics do not agree. It is curious however that, whenever Blair does something to which the critics object, it is the people who are to blame. Blair's authoritarian social agenda was wrong because it was populist, explained veteran radical Bea Campbell. Melanie Phillips murmured with approval, only objecting that the government did have to tell us all the difference between right and wrong.