Party conferences are odd things. By their nature they are a gathering of the faithful who fervently believe in what their party stands for.
This has its pluses. There is a renewal of enthusiasm, an exchange of ideas, the taking of political temperature, shifts in policy.
The vital thing which determines success is that the party can genuinely change. The ability to change is key because the things which are loved by the party faithful are generally less loved by the voting public.
All parties have this problem and if they do not solve it the penalty is to be out of office. Parties need to adapt even if it is difficult to take their core supporters along that journey.
The Conservative party has an advantage over the others in that it is not wedded to any particular set of policies. Some general principles – freedom of the individual, private enterprise, a smaller state – are there but not hard and fast policies. This makes change easier and the Conservative party will need to change a lot before it has any prospect of taking office again.
The Labour party had a larger difficulty, a constitution which enshrined objectives and a series of policies which the public increasingly rejected. State ownership, punitive taxation, union power. These led them to........