It was good on the bulletins but did it fall flat in the hall?

Having now watched all the TV bulletins it’s clear that like almost all Cameron’s set-pieces he gets his sound bites right. The speech has come over much better on the TV bulletins than it actually was.

From what could be gathered from the TV bulletins you did not get the feeling of overwhelming support amongst the activists for their new leader and you could see that Cameron made them feel uncomfortable on more than one occasion.

Going straight into support of same-sex marriages from his support for the family was pushing his party about as far as he could. He just about got away with it.

Where he scored was on the bulletins. In my BBC news days I used to spend many hours editing speeches like this to produce bulletin packages and it struck me that a Cameron performance must be a joy to work with. His 20 second sound-bites are clearly signposted, well thought out, concise and usually compelling. He’s got great diction and he delivers the main points very effectively.

I think that this augers well for how hel’ll perform in a General Election campaign. Where he should be worred is that you did not get the feeling that there was overwhelming enthusiasm for where he’s taking his party. They’ll go along with him for now but he needs to continue to stay on top.

Compeition news. In July we launched a competition on what Cameron would do in his speech to follow “hug a hoodie”. We asked what’s going to be next? Clearly it had to be something that was so distant from what you would expect to hear from a Tory leader that it will, at first, appear totally shocking.

How did you get on. If you think that your entry was on target then please email me with the comment number by 8am on Friday morning. The winner will get a copy of my book on politics and betting which is being published next year.

Mike Smithson

Picture from Conservativehome.