Presentation IS politics (Polis@Conservative Conference)

Presentation is now utterly part of good politics was the consensus that emerged from the Polis fringe meeting debate at Conservative Party conference.Journalists Ben Brogan (Daily Mail) and Stryker McGuire (Newsweek) agreed with Jeremy Hunt MP (Shadow DCMS Secretary and blogger) and Conservative candidate Priti Patel that you need to look and sound good as well as have something to say.Most of the panel made the obvious contrast between hapless Gordon Brown and personable David Cameron. Our event partner YouGovStone had done research which showed that their influentials think that Cameron is a triumph of style over substance but that he will still win the next election. But as Sarfraz Manzoor from the Guardian pointed out, Brown has been a disaster because of his policy decisions (or lack of them) as much as his unfriendly public persona.