By rights, the Conservative party conference in Birmingham ought to have been a funereal affair. It was the first time the party had gathered after its worst-ever election defeat and the number of former MPs rivalled the number of current ones. And yet the mood was surprisingly upbeat. ‘Opposition is so freeing,’ said one MP at the bar in the early hours. ‘It’s like being drunk at the wake after the funeral,’ remarked one Tory strategist.
It’s not that the party conference revealed a breakout star in the leadership contest (‘We’ll be doing this again in two years,’ predicts one unimpressed MP). Instead, Tories are looking at Labour’s misfortunes. Three months ago, they expected to be out of power for at least ten years; now they think the Keir Starmer project is imploding upon launch. This partly explains why there were so many former Tory MPs at conference – some expect that there will be lots of winnable by-elections over the next few years and are already preening themselves.
The Tories recognise the signs of political death, and they believe it’s already started to hang over Labour
The new Prime Minister has not yet reached 100 days, but his problems are piling up. He’s had to face a revolt from the left over his cut to the winter fuel payment, Rosie Duffield quitting the party over his ‘staggering hypocrisy’ regarding freebies and reports of infighting in Downing Street between his chief of staff Sue Gray and senior Labour figures. As the former MP Penny Mordaunt put it in Birmingham: ‘In a mere 12 weeks he has brought doubt to our economy, fear to our elderly, a touch of the Imelda Marcos to the office of prime minister and sausage memes to our timelines.’
Voters do not seem particularly impressed. Starmer’s approval ratings have plunged at a speed that would have alarmed Liz Truss.
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