This afternoon’s law and order theme to Tory conference did take a bit of a knock when police were called to an altercation involving one of the party’s MPs, resulting in the backbencher, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, being sent home. Not long after this incident, which sent parts of the conference centre into lockdown, Priti Patel walked onto the stage and announced that ‘today, here in Manchester, the Conservative party takes its rightful place as the Party of Law and Order in Britain once again’.
Politics today is so tumultuous that it has scarcely been thought remarkable that the Home Secretary is so happy to make clear that her party lost this badge under her predecessors, particularly given that Tory strategists believe the party lost it thanks to one predecessor in particular: Theresa May. The language that Patel used in her conference address wasn’t really far off some of the tough-talking leadership pitches that May offered to conference when she was Home Secretary, but the focus was very different.
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