The beast of Birmingham

Final word on our Conservative conference fringe event. LBC Radio presenter Iain Dale writes:

The other fringe I spoke at was hosted by Forest and the Tobacco Manufacturers Association in a very loud bar called Nuvo. There were several hundred people there, all getting gradually drunk as a skunk.

I’d written a few bullet points, which I then discovered I had lost, so I had rapidly to type out a few notes on my iPhone, just in case I dried up. Although I speak on the radio for three hours every day, I don’t do many speeches nowadays, so I got a lot more nervous about doing this than I would have done a few years ago. In fact, I was bloody petrified.

There were four speakers and I was the last, after Paul Scully. Most of the audience were happily guzzling and chatting while we all spoke, but in the end I think it went off OK. I banged on about freedom of the individual and the fact that we should all take responsibility for what we put in our bodies (ooh, er), and that anyone who supported a sugar tax should forfeit the right to call themselves a Conservative.

OK, shameful populism at an event like this, and of course it got the cheer I knew it would. I also got the biggest laugh out of the four of us for using the phrase “shag like a beast”. You had to be there. It was in context, I promise.

For those who weren't there the context was this.

Introducing Iain to guests I announced, "Our next speaker doesn't smoke. He doesn't vape. He doesn't even drink ..."

Cue loud voice behind me, "But I shag like a beast!"

Perhaps, as Iain says, you had to be there. All I know is, it got a huge laugh, the largest of the night.

Visit ConservativeHome for Iain's weekly column that also has items on Ukip, Boris Johnson and Brexit minister David Davis.