Tories land in Manchester, journalists not so much

The Conservatives have touched down in Manchester for their annual trip up North as the party conference gets underway at Manchester Central.

Journalists, it seems, are not invited.

The party courted controversy earlier this year when it announced journalists would be charged £137 to attend the conference in order to help cover the costs of security checks, which it claimed run into “tens of thousands of pounds.”

In a habitual U-turn the party dropped this plan in July following protests from, among others, the Foreign Press Association and the Society of Editors. Both of these bodies were co-signatories to a letter stating that “We believe that a fundamental tenet of a free and democratic society is allowing journalists – from all over the world – to freely report on matters of public interest.”

When Prolific North attempted to gain accreditation for the conference in September, however, we were directed to a page requesting not £137, but £880 for media accreditation. A reply querying why this payment was required despite an alleged dropping of charges for media that we had ourselves reported went unanswered, as did several further emails on the same topic, right up to one sent as the conference opened on Sunday.

Prolific North’s office is quite literally next door to the conference so there’s a reasonable claim of local interest, but it seems that the best options for those wanting on-the-ground coverage of an event in Manchester that is likely to affect the entire country is to turn to Tory-friendly London newspapers.

On a side note, Manchester nightlife ‘Tsar’ Sacha Lord went to the trouble of placing a huge advert on one of the tallest buildings overlooking Manchester Central, and deploying several digital vans to roam the area highlighting what he feels is the government’s oversight regarding 3.8m struggling freelancers during the pandemic.