Tomorrow belongs to us
The Scottish Tories gather in Troon this weekend for their annual conference. It must be time for another of WingsLand’s super-popular Unionist photo-galleries, then!
Warning: contains scenes of an adult nature. Quite some way beyond “adult”, in fact.
The upcoming generation of Young Tories is eager for battle.
“One day, all this could be mine. Bollocks.”
A remarkably common theme in these pics will be people who appear to be napping.
There’s one there.
And one at the front.
A couple here gone already, and a couple more clearly on the brink.
This chap even managed it standing up.
“Murdo! MURDO! Not you too!”
“…so if any of you find poor Mr Tibbles, there’s a £25 reward. He loves catnip.”
Two wayward teens vow never to be caught drinking beer behind the PE block again.
The party’s young heart-throb (46) really packs ’em in.
“Maybe a sudden loud noise will wake these two old dears up.”
DO… NOT… LOOK… DIRECTLY… INTO… HER… EYES…
Some rowdies were ejected from these seats for wearing anti-Corn-Laws t-shirts.
“Is that Mr Tibbles out in the corridor?”
The face of the saddest man in Scotland.
Young man dejectedly assesses his weekend pulling options.
“Everybody now! The only way is UP! Baby!”
An army of bouncers prevents anyone leaving during the less popular speeches.
This is basically the entire crowd.
Oh no! How did this shot of the SNP conference last month get in here? (Four overflow rooms not pictured.) Our wife’s going to kill us!
Easy, ladies.
“Now, who needs to be taken to the bathroom before we stop for dinner?”
Those pictures bring back memories of going to Edinburgh’s Dominion Cinema as a kid. Lots of old ladies in the front seats who were only there for a heat.
“What film’s this then?”
The ridiculous thing is, that picture of the SNP crowd actually makes it look smaller than it was. I'm not sure why they even had a microphone at the Tory conference, because you could probably have just spoken and the people would be able to hear you. Well, might have to turn their hearing aids up a notch…
I wonder what Cameron thought when he walked in and saw a smaller crowd than some of his press conferences? Damned decent of him to say I'm allowed to be more proud of being Scottish than British though – what a jolly good chap.
Do we know the capacity of that hall in Troon? And am I right in thinking they weren't really using the gallery at all? Inquiring minds want to know.
After the squeeze at Inverness last October, worst in the "circulation" areas actually despite the tented extension, people were talking about where could we find a bigger venue that wasn't Glasgow, but it all came up a bit of a blank.
Maybe Troon could cope?
Just thinking
That lot in Troon are mainly beyond child bearing age and the Pandas are a breeding couple.
How long then?
"Do we know the capacity of that hall in Troon? And am I right in thinking they weren't really using the gallery at all? Inquiring minds want to know."
There were a few people in the gallery. This is the best shot I could get of the whole hall:
link to twitpic.com
The theoretical capacity of the Concert Hall is, I believe, 850. But I suspect that's standing, and with a rather smaller stage. From the pics it doesn't look like there are more than about 12 rows of seats with around 20 to a row. They're not all occupied, but add in the balcony and you've probably got 230-250 bodies in there total.
230-250 bodies is probably pretty close to the reality; bodies, not necessarily the numbers.
I've seen regular local party member meetings for the SNP pulling in those numbers in the bigger areas. Even rural ones can get about half that crowd (with a wider age range) for a regular meeting. If it gets any worse for the "Scottish" Tories then they can save on the bus fares and petrol by cycling in the annual conference on a tandem bike. It's probably not helping them much if they've been relying on an aging support base that's naturally dying off and have no middle age or youth supporters to replace them. Then again, there's little reason for any sane Scot outside of the elderly die-hards and those in "the club" to vote or support them in any way, so an outbreak of sanity or rationality will only make them wither all the more.
I wonder if you could show a stream of photos from random conferences and people could guess at the party hosting it by the crowd sizes and demographics? I suppose the location and past records on hand to reference would give it away to many keeping tabs.
They actually got more of a crowd than I was expecting.
You realise of course there was a subtext in Dave's rallying speech which was actually quite worrying.
Some nice pics, and puts the whole 'Friends of the Union' in context. Were incentives offered for attendance, I'm sure a few in the crowd(!) are pouring over knitting patterns – knitted union jack long johns may help stave off the cold when the granny tax begins to bite.
Let’s hope the ‘conference/auld folks rammie’ was sponsored be these boys..
link to thesundaypost.co.uk
I bet the people at SLP marketing are wishing they were as much on message…
cheers
charlie
Minus media and other anciliary, no more than 200 souls was the estimate of my source. meanwhile the Scotsman was claiming well over 400.
These photographs are useful in highlighting the truth of it. This is fringe political cult within the wider body politic, unrepresentative of the Scottish electorate, and, for the most part, unelected and unelectable.
It is never mentioned that Ruth Davidson has stood only once in a parliamentary election, that she lost badly, garnering a derisory 1800 votes, and that she owes her seat at Holyrood entirely to the charity of the assisted places scheme List Vote.
Yet this young woman, elected leader of her party by some 2500 Scots Tories, receives near blanket coverage in our national press every time she open her mouth.
Now the Herald in Saturday's leader suggested that the Scottish Tories were undergoing some sort of renaissance since the installation of its new leader, and offered an unsubstantiated claim that the Party had swelled its ranks by 2,400 in new blood members since then. When I asked respectfully in the reader comments, for the identity of the claimant, and whether anyone at the paper had bothered to check veracity of the claim, they responded by "disappearing" the post. Convenient.
This sort of manipulation and economy with the truth goes on all the time, of course. We recently had the spectical of Johann Lamont's speech at the Labour Spring bash, being delay whilst a sparse audience was poked and prodded to occupy the front seats and random visitors and maintenece staff being round up to add bulk for the cameras. No mainstream media reported that.
In the mean time, timely comparison with a truly packed out SNP gathering providing stark contrast, was never made by the media.
The photographs published herein graphically illustrate the disconnect between actual political relevance in electoral terms and media hype. It demonstrates that with a large enough megaphone, the tiniest tail can wag the biggest dog.
Well done in publishing them.
Christian Wright,
I also asked where these additional Conservatives were, clearly not at Troon. . I cannot even find the article any more! Perhaps it is the vaults, beyond human ken.
I
Hah! The SWP regularly pulls in a greater and more engaged audience for our national meetings, and those napping are swiftly woken up by a comradely flick to the ear.
Superb, definitely puts a smile on a Monday morning.
In case you’re looking for some more grist to the mill (and I am)
link to news.bbc.co.uk
I saw some of this fiasco on tv and was amused to see how few were there. I used to be a door steward in a place about fifteen minutes up the road from Troon. The capacity was about 150-250, and it looked busier than the "conference". I really doubt whether there were 400 people there at all, as it looks to be little more than half that. BTW, has anyone noticed that the podium area takes up nearly a quarter of the hall, without actually intruding on the "crowd"? ….lol. Has anyone got some spare Tenalady? Ahahahahahaha….
Ha ha — lol
Thanks – brightened my morning immensely.
I see this article is linked to by the Friends of the Union today (27th March 2012):
http://www.friendsoftheunion.com
For the next few weeks it will rotate daily to prominent pro-independence websites and articles.
Both of these NNS articles are worth reading if you need a chuckle about the Tory Conference:
link to newsnetscotland.com
link to newsnetscotland.com
"I see this article is linked to by the Friends of the Union today"
(Incidentally, the shortage of recent updates is the result of having to do some real-world earning-a-living work for the last few days, but WingsLand should be back properly tomorrow.)
Great stuff, keep up the good work.
MS