ePolitix.com marks party conference season with a look back at some of the highs and lows from conferences past.
Benjamin Disraeli - 1872
Speaking to the National Unions of Conservative and Constitutional Associations at the Crystal Palace, Disraeli, then leader of the opposition, set out his principles of Conservatism.
"The three great objects which are sought by Toryism - the maintenance of our institutions, the preservation of our Empire, and the improvement of the condition of the people".
He said that the greatest part of the population was Conservative, adding: "When I say 'Conservative', I use the word it its purest and loftiest sense. I mean that the people of England, and especially the working classes of England, are proud of belonging to a great country, and wish to maintain its greatness."
Ramsay MacDonald - 1900
1900 was the year of Labour's founding conference, when 70 organisations including the unions and groups like the Fabians and the Independent Labour Party formed the Labour Representation Committee with Ramsay MacDonald - who went on to become the first Labour prime minister - as its secretary.
The conference backed a motion that working class opinion be represented in the House of Commons, although in 1900 there were only two LRC MPs, including Kier Hardie.
Winston Churchill - 1946
Churchill’s Conservative Party was defeated in 1945 by Labour, led by Clement Atlee and campaigning on a promise to establish the welfare state. In his speech to Tory conference one year later the war leader bristled at the thought of the socialist anthem being sung in the Commons.
"When this new Parliament first met, all the Socialist members stood up and sang 'The Red Flag' in their triumph. Peering ahead through the mists and mysteries of the future so far as I can; I see the division at the next election will be between those who wholeheartedly sing 'The Red Flag' and those who rejoice to sing 'The Land of Hope and Glory.' There is the noble hymn which will rally the wise, the sober-minded and the good to the salvation of our native land."
Hugh Gaitskell - 1960
Labour's leader for the party's third general election loss in 1959, Gaitskill won applause and boos in a passionate speech during a debate over the party’s position on unilateral nuclear disarmament.
"I say this to you. We may lose the vote today and the result may deal this party a grave blow. It may not be possible to prevent it but there are some of us, I think many of us, who will not accept that this blow need be mortal: who will not believe that such an end is inevitable.
"There are some of us who will fight and fight and fight again to save the party we love. We will fight and fight and fight again to bring back sanity and honesty and dignity, so that our party - with its great past - may retain its glory and its greatness.
"It is in that spirit I ask delegates who are still free to decide how they vote to support what I believe to be a realistic policy on defence, and to reject what I regard as a suicidal path to unilateral disarmament, which will leave our country defenceless and alone." He lost the vote, but succeeded in having it overturned one year later.
Harold Macmillan - 1963
Sparking one of the most bitterly-fought leadership contests in the Conservative Party's history, news that the prime minister was to retire immediately due to ill health shook Blackpool.
Alec Douglas-Home's announcement of the news to conference caused mayhem, and the rest of the week was dominated by campaigning as Lord Hailsham, Reggie Maudling, Rab Butler and Douglas-Home jockeyed for position. By the end of conference the aristocratic Douglas-Home, initially the outsider, emerged unscathed and became leader and prime minister.
William Hague - 1977
The current shadow foreign secretary made his first conference address aged 16, at Blackpool, in a speech criticising state control: "Half of you may not be here in 30 or 40 years' time but I will be, and I want to be free."
Margaret Thatcher described him as "possibly another young Pitt" and the precocious teenager went on to become leader of the Conservatives, the youngest since William Pitt in 1793, but the image of Hague as an out-of-touch political anorak dogged his time in the job.
Margaret Thatcher - 1980
In a defiant speech to Conservative conference, Thatcher spoke of her determination to stick with her economic policies in the face of high unemployment. Often regarded as one of the great political speeches of the century, it includes the passage: "If our people feel that they are part of a great nation and they are prepared to will the means to keep it great, a great nation we shall be, and shall remain.
"So, what can stop us from achieving this? What then stands in our way? The prospect of another winter of discontent? I suppose it might. But I prefer to believe that certain lessons have been learnt from experience, that we are coming, slowly, painfully, to an autumn of understanding. And I hope that it will be followed by a winter of common sense. If it is not, we shall not be diverted from our course.
"To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say. 'You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning.' I say that not only to you but to our friends overseas and also to those who are not our friends."
David Steel - 1981
The Liberal Party leader was guilty of over-confidence when he told activists: "I have the good fortune to be the first Liberal leader for over half a century who is able to say to you at the end of our annual assembly, go back to your constituencies, and prepare for government." It was not to be, but the phrase entered popular consciousness.
Margaret Thatcher - 1984
In a staggering attack by the IRA, a bomb at the Conservative conference in Brighton killed five and injured many others, including trade and industry secretary Norman Tebbit and chief whip John Wakeham. Tebbit had to be rescued from the rubble in an operation lasting hours, and his wife Margaret was left paralysed for life.
The prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, insisted the conference open on schedule at 9.30am and said in her speech: "The attack has failed. All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail."
Neil Kinnock - 1985
Seen as a critical moment in Labour's transformation into a party of government, leader Neil Kinnock launched a blistering attack on the militant left of the party and the leaders of Liverpool City Council. "I'll tell you what happens with impossible promises: You start with far-fetched resolutions; they are then pickled into a rigid cold dogma.
"And you go through the years, sticking to that: Outdated, misplaced, and irrelevant to the real needs. And you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council - a Labour council - hiring taxis to scuttle round a city, handing out redundancy notices to its own workers. I'm telling you now: No matter how entertaining, how fulfilling to short-term egos - I'll tell you and you'll listen - I'm telling you, I'm telling you - you can't play politics with people's jobs and people's services."
Peter Lilley - 1992 & 1998
A star of the Thatcher era and a popular conference rabble-rouser, Peter Lilley broke into verse on two memorably embarrassing occasions. In 1992 as social security secretary he performed his own version of Gilbert and Sullivan's "I have a little list" from the Mikado.
His list included "young ladies who get pregnant to jump the housing queue / And dads who won't support the kids of the ladies they have... kissed / And I haven't even mentioned all those scrounging socialists."
In 1998 he adapted Land of Hope and Glory for New Labour's Britain. "Land of chattering classes, no more pageantry Darlings, raise your glasses, to brave modernity. Who needs Nelson or Churchill? The past is so passe. Britain's now about Britpop, and the River Cafe. God, this place is so frumpy, let's be more like LA".
Michael Portillo - 1995
While secretary of state for defence, the former MP for Enfield Southgate caused some to squirm with a speech which was afterwards derided as arrogant and in bad taste. "Around the world three letters send a chill down the spine of the enemy - SAS," he said. "And those letters spell out one clear message: don't mess with Britain."
He finished, to a rousing ovation: "We are Conservatives. We will speak of pride, of honour, of valour in battle and yes of glory. The SAS have a famous motto: Who dares, wins. We dare. We will win."
Tony Blair - 2000
The autumn conference was at the time considered one of the best of his career, as he countered claims he had no real beliefs or ideology with talk of an "irreducible core" he would never compromise. But almost as noted as the content of the speech at Brighton was the then prime minister's prodigious sweating, drenching his pale blue shirt after the hour-long performance.
Theresa May - 2002
One year after Labour’s second thumping election win, this Tory conference was one of low self-confidence and self-flagellation - and no-one summed up the mood better than party chairman Theresa May, with an extraordinary plea for modernisation.
"Yes, we've made progress, but let's not kid ourselves. There's a way to go before we can return to government. There's a lot we need to do in this party of ours. Our base is too narrow and so, occasionally, are our sympathies, You know what some people call us: the nasty party."
Iain Duncan Smith - 2002 & 2003
It's hard to know if it was the line itself or Iain Duncan Smith's whispering delivery which made it stick, but the Tory leader is still shadowed by less-than-flattering references to "the quiet man" despite his reinvention as a big voice on social justice. In 2002 Duncan Smith wanted to slap down party critics and address his perceived lack of charisma.
"Those who do not know me will come to understand this. When I say a thing I mean it. When I set myself a task, I do it. When I settle on a course I stick to it. Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man."
A year later, Duncan Smith was fighting for his political life and, in an aggressive assault on Tony Blair, returned to the line: "To the prime minister I say this - the quiet man is here to stay and he's turning up the volume."
Walter Wolfgang - 2005
In an incident which for some captured the Labour government's worst authoritarian instincts, 82-year-old party member Walter Wolfgang, who escaped Nazi Germany in 1937, was thrown out of the conference hall for shouting "nonsense" as foreign secretary Jack Straw defended Iraq policy.
To make matters worse, the police then used Labour's Terrorism Act to prevent him returning. Tony Blair later apologised for his treatment and Wolfgang was allowed back into the hall.
Cherie Blair - 2006
With the media obsessed by the notoriously fractious relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Cherie Blair was overheard saying "well that’s a lie" as she listened to the chancellor say it had been a privilege to work with her husband.
She denied the story, which Downing Street called "untrue and rubbish". In his address at the end of the conference, the then prime minister said he did not have to worry about his wife "running off with the bloke next door", a comment seen by many as a tacit admission that Cherie had indeed made the remark.
