Conference: Real value of con trick? I don't know do you!

The Chief Minister is of to the Conservative conference after the previous outing to the Labour event.

It's difficult to quantify what value these expeditions are certainly for over three decades after the Island achieved control of fiscal levers domestically in the late sixties no governments saw the need for these type of trips. I think I can recall Walker and Cannan (the Senior) going to ‘Wimbledon’ on one occasion but I don’t remember them feeling the need to ‘move and shake’ with Margaret Thatcher.

Of course it's easy to carp and I really don’t know if there is any value. What I do know is that in addition to the handful of Ministers in COMIN we pay a raft of MHK/MLCs who should be asking these sort of questions and analysing the trips in some detail.

The government are often critical of social media and its unreasoned criticism as they see it but in the absence of an enquiring political class or a mainstream media that will seriously go behind the government press office sound bite what else is there.

Government could kill political social media stone dead if MHKs and the mainstream did the job they are paid for not just on this but on ALL issues.

Here’s the link and for once what Howard says could be right. I don’t know...do you?

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/quayle-to-attend-tory-co...

Image: Delegation at last years conference

Bernard Moffatt