To conclude my conference season blogs I take a look at the past week in Birmingham.

The Conservative Party Conference always has a particular challenge. Coming last in the running order, spokespeople can find they are doing more responding to the earlier events than they like.  Journalists by this point are tired and (more) cynical.  And there has been more time for speculation, whether in mischief or not.

Last year the Conference was dramatic, although not for the reasons Theresa May’s team will have wanted.  Visiting with a group of students I was in the hall for the Prime Minister’s speech and saw for myself the “P45 handover”, the falling-apart slogan and the repeated coughing fits.  So the party didn’t need to do that much this year to do better.

Conservative conferences differ from Labour and the Lib Dems. There is virtually no debate in the main hall. It is not a decision-making body. An MP I spoke to recently told me that you have failed if you spend most of your time in the main hall. And I can see why. If you want to hear provocative speakers, get training, take part in discussions and so on, you have to go to a fringe meeting.  And, as with other conferences, there are always plenty of these.

This is a problem for comms teams though. If fringe meetings take place at the same time as main hall presentations, or you need to queue for fringe meetings at the same time, the hall is likely to be less full than expected. And the cameras will pick this out.  This year there were plenty of shots of rows of empty seats. You don’t need to be a comms expert to know this looks bad. The party needs a large hall for sessions that will be full (the PMs speech for example) but at other times it can look terrible.

There is a way round this and it is about scheduling. It must be possible to avoid such an overlap, even if that means shorter main hall sessions and some unavailable times for fringe meeting rooms. The other way round this of course would be to operate the conference more as a decision-making debate.

Fringe meetings generate their own publicity. And the comms team are in the odd position of knowing that this will be seen as part of the conference coverage but also knowing there is little or nothing they can do to affect it. This is an issue for all parties, but it stood out more starkly at this one simply because of the type of meetings and type of speakers. Senior “troublemakers” don’t need to be in the hall.  The platform of a fringe is enough to get column inches.

If the party doesn’t have a lot of choice when it comes to the fringe, it can control main hall and exhibition area branding. This year the word was Opportunity and the imagery very Union Jack-based. We tend to expect patriotic colours at the Conservative event, but it was much more noticeable this year than last.

The Conservatives end their conference with the Leader’s speech. As last year this is preceded by a procession of sort speeches. These tend to be either to highlight individuals, such as Shaun Bailey recently selected as candidate for London Mayor, or to send messages about inclusion or successes.

Last year I was in the hall for these and felt they worked well. This year watching remotely I felt they didn’t.

The problem this year is that there were simply too many speakers. It would be much better to establish a clear theme and a limited group of people and feature them.  Bailey could have had a longer slot for example and some of the local councillors could have been taken off the list.

Theresa May is not a natural podium speaker, and no one would look to her for knockabout. It was clear in this speech though that effort had gone into finding humour, from the “dance” intro to some of the other remarks.

There will be a lot of analysis of this speech content. I am just going to pick out a few key messages.  Security was a big theme.  Funding for the NHS ditto.  Responsibility was underlined.  This is not surprising.  Theresa May’s brand is “serious” and “dogged”.  By focusing on security and responsibility, on dealing with Russia and terrorism, she drew an obvious contrast with Jeremy Corbyn (or how he is seen, and perception is reality in politics) and going on to say more about him.  I felt he didn’t need to be mentioned for the point to be made. But this is conference and you need to throw the audience some red meat!

The speech took some time to get to Brexit. This is tricky territory for May. She returned to the theme of respect. She summarised the benefits of her proposal. She made repeated use of the word “control”. This was the part of the speech that had to be “got over” – not to close to the beginning but not the finale either.

May referred to several key figures, including Sajid Javid, Ruth Davidson, James Brokenshire and Shaun Bailey.  When this happens in political speeches, cameras often like to focus on the individual mentioned.  Some were in obvious spots. But while Shaun Bailey was in an aisle seat, it took some time for him to be picked out.  In a situation like this he should have been brought further forward or given a seat at the end of the Cabinet block.  Maximising good coverage means making it as easy as possible for camera operators to find the right shot.  It was clear from the walk out though, that thought had been given to good pictures of May and her husband Philip shaking hands.

Housing had been briefed in advance as a major theme as had living costs. And towards the end of the speech came an announcement that the cap on council borrowing to build houses will be scrapped and that the end of austerity is in sight.

Just before the speech started, MP James Duddridge sent a public email to Chair of the 1922 Committee Graham Brady calling for May to go. The relevance of Brady is that the Parliamentary party has a vote of confidence in the leader if he receives a certain number of such letters. The significance of the timing is clear. Conference ambushes like this are not new. Back in 1995 for example, Conservative Alan Howarth chose to announce his defection to Labour on the eve of the Tory event in Blackpool.  Howarth’s defection was dramatic and shocking.

Duddridge’s letter seems less of a bomb.

As the party managers, elected representatives and members leave Birmingham for home, commentators will be looking for signs of whether Duddridge is a lone wolf or part of a schedule.  They will be looking for critical comments on the Brexit proposals (and it is not difficult to find rebels in the party).  But a speech heavy with domestic commitments guarantees what many Conservatives have been calling for, some non-Brexit coverage.

So should the comms team be pleased with conference?  I suspect they will be relieved that the final speech met the challenge and exceeded expectations.  They will be pleased at the relatively smooth running.  And they will be delighted that initial coverage seems to be drowning out the Duddridge email.

Image courtesy of Twitter/Theresa_May