Hope defines the Conservative conference — with Kemi Badenoch the unifying force

Last year the mood in Birmingham bordered on funereal, as the party continued to plummet in the polls and the knives were out for Kemi Badenoch. This year is very different. The bars of the Hyatt may not have been as packed as they were in the party’s heyday — where a few years ago getting a drink was an epic undertaking, this year a pint could be secured in a couple of minutes — but there was hope in the air and fun to be had. Most commented 1 Niqabs and burqas harm society, says Tory shadow minister Politics 661 comments The Birmingham tapestry — the Tory version of the Bayeux tapestry, which mocked Labour’s record in government and took particular aim at the “turncoat” Robert Jenrick — proved a hit on the main conference floor. TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE Jeremy Clarkson, the TV presenter, made a surprise appearance on the main conference stage to rail at Labour’s treatment of the countryside and business . “Why would anybody set up a business right now?” he asked. Jeremy Clarkson was joined on stage by his Clarkson’s Farm co-star Charlie Ireland, left times photographer Richard Pohle His appearance was kept so tightly under wraps — Badenoch personally helped to secure it — that he ended up delivering his speech to a largely empty hall. “A lot of people have come dressed as seats,” he joked. Advertisement The difference lies in Badenoch herself. This is the first conference in more than a decade that has not been dominated by internecine warfare. Badenoch is indisputably more popular than her party. Top stories 1 George Clooney, newly French, plans Italian restaurant in Provence Europe 2 How American billionaires are shaping the future of warfare Technology 3 New The key takeaways from Kemi Badenoch’s conference speech Politics 4 Reform UK clears its own advisers over Channel 4 donations sting Politics 5 Norwegian princess and shaman husband sue inner circle for m Europe Top stories 1 New The key takeaways from Kemi Badenoch’s conference speech Politics 2 New Southampton’s Tonda Eckert escapes ban for ‘Spygate’ scandal Football 3 New Cristiano Ronaldo reaches new level of delusion with self-parody masterpiece Football 4 New Barclays traders’ convictions quashed after Supreme Court ruling Companies & Markets 5 Give every child a stake in Britain’s future Economics Where last year the majority of the shadow cabinet were predicting her demise, this year they are — as Boris Johnson once put it — a veritable “ nest of singing birds ”. Politics newsletter Get our daily insider’s guide to Westminster, plus a rundown of PMQs every Wednesday. Sign up with one click You’ve successfully signed up to the Politics newsletter Explore our newsletters An error occurred. Please use the link below. Politics newsletter Explore our newsletters The past year has seen the number of voters who have a favourable opinion of her rise to more than 30 per cent, although the Tories as a party remain on about 20 per cent, still lagging behind both a revived Labour and Reform UK. The hope is that she can now drag the party brand up with her and bring the Tories back into contention. Badenoch is relishing it. “We are under new management,” she told GB News. “There’s a new captain. There’s a new coach. There’s a new owner, effectively, which is all me.” If last year was all about political survival, this year is about asserting her dominance over her party and moulding it in her image. Advertisement Badenoch believes that the path back to power is simple — it is to refocus the Tories on the economy, taking them back to their core values as a low-tax, low-spend party. TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER Richard Pohle That is no easy task given that successive Tory governments took taxes and welfare spending to record levels, as Badenoch herself has acknowledged. Her objective at this conference is to change the conversation. Where shadow cabinet ministers once said that voters were so upset with the Tories that they shut the door in their faces or castigated them when they went out canvassing, they now believe they are being given a hearing. “When you knocked on doors a year ago there was a sense that there was nothing you could say that would make any difference to how people were feeling about us,” they said. “That has really changed. They’re still not saying they’ll vote for us but they are prepared to listen.” Advertisement At the heart of her conference speech, which she billed as the “battle for Britain’s soul”, was a huge package of cuts to welfare spending and government spending more broadly. The package, which Badenoch described as the “Conservative savings plan”, will be used to scrap inheritance tax on family homes and reductions in the employers’ rate of national insurance. Phil Lewis/SOPA Images/Shutterstock Half of the money saved will also be used to pay down the deficit allowing Badenoch to once again portray the Tories as the party of fiscal probity. There is political logic to the Tory focus on the economy. Over the past year the Tories have consistently polled above Labour on the question of which party would be best at handling the economy. One in five voters think that the Tories would be best placed to control the nation’s finances — compared with just one in ten who trust Nigel Farage ’s party. Tory strategists think that when voters finally enter the polling booth this could prove decisive in a number of key marginal seats. “The economy is always critical in every election and we now have a very clear message about what we stand for,” they said. Advertisement “We are never going to win back hardcore Reform voters but there is a significant chunk of their current support that will switch back to us if they think we are the party on the right best placed to challenge Labour.” Badenoch has told her party to prepare for an early election, but that is not the same thing as wanting one. In fact, the Tories would prefer Burnham to keep going as long as possible. They need time if they are to eke their way back into political contention and be competitive again. Kevin Hollinrake, the Tory party chairman, said the quiet bit out loud at one conference event, warning that the Conservatives were “not where we need to be right now” and would prefer the next election to be “some way down the track”. As he put it at another event in a message intended to buoy colleagues, “we’re the least hated political party in the country.” Kevin Hollinrake, the Conservative Party chairman, in Birmingham Paul ELLIS / AFP via Getty Images He is obviously right — a recent YouGov mega poll found that while the Tories have recovered from their nadir last year they would only win seven more seats than Reform UK. Things are better, but not that much better. About 300 people have so far made it on to the candidates’ list — less than half the number of parliamentary seats, fuelling concerns about the party’s preparedness for a snap poll. Advertisement One former cabinet minister said that the party had a “real talent problem”, given the present number of Tory MPs would only just manage to fill every single government post. The Tories believe that there is a narrow path to the next election. Badenoch is clearly enjoying the ideological clarity that comes with facing Andy Burnham at the dispatch box, and in a way it suits them both. Burnham is an unabashed socialist who wants to end 40 years of neoliberalism and believes that Margaret Thatcher lies at the root of all of Britain’s ills. Badenoch is a small state Tory who is modelling her leadership on Thatcher. The hope among shadow cabinet ministers is that the Tories will be able to stay on message and that Farage will implode. Senior members of the shadow cabinet know that there is a hard core of millions of Reform UK voters that they will never win back. However, they are optimistic that some of those who deserted the party will look again. Lord Ashcroft, the veteran Conservative donor who has bankrolled the party since the days when William Hague futilely battled Tony Blair after Labour’s landslide victory in 1997, warned Tory MPs that their job was now to become as popular as their leader. Voters, he said, now saw Badenoch as a leader who had “conviction and means business”. However, he added: “Unfortunately their view of the Conservative Party is taking a bit longer to catch up. In other words, voters like her — they’re just not convinced about the rest of you.”