To Shoreditch, unlikely terrain for this year’s Tory Reform Group conference. The last such shindig happened in pre-Covid times, with the One Nation Conservatives keen to make up for lost time. Damian Green, Maria Miller and Tom Tugendhat were among a succession of MPs who appeared before the activists, proudly extolling the virtues of the centre ground and common sense conservatism.
Mr S was in attendance and particularly enjoyed the reaction of the MP who, upon finding out the result of the Met manhunt, delightedly exclaimed ‘We’ve found Khalife? Thank fuck for that!’ Other highlights included Bim Afolami’s remarkably understated observation on the need for party discipline to ensure fiscal restraint ‘Frankly, over the last few years we have been many things but disciplined isn’t one of them.’
But speech of the day went to Victoria Atkins, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Long-been regarded as a rising star of the TRG, she delivered a staunch defence of the past 13 years and took the fight to Labour too:
If we need any example of just how badly-run Labour organisations are, we need I’m afraid only to look at what’s happened in Birmingham this week and to see just how bad ideology serves when it comes to running an enormous organisation. And dare I even say it – much as I love our capital city – but Sadiq Khan has turned this city into a city that is at a standstill. Have you tried getting around anywhere by road or tube? It is currently at a standstill, it is grubby, it doesn’t have that pride that we feel about our capital city and this is why of course we’ve got to help our Conservative candidate Susan Hall next year.
Atkins sought to contrast the ‘wealth’ of experience in the Tory party with what Labour’s team under Rachel Reeves has to offer:
If you look at Labour, look at the Treasury front bench of Labour, not one of them has any experience of the private sector. So goodness knows, if any of them were ever to get their hands on the levers of power, how would they understand the pressures facing a small business, how would they understand the barriers, those pain points as I’m trying to work through – as the minister responsible for the UK tax system – those pain points for small businesses as they’re scaling up. They do not have that extensive external experience and that is why we can never ever let them get anywhere near Number 10 and Number 11.
She added that while the short term economic picture might look grim, it would be worthwhile in the end:
All of our work in the Treasury at the moment is focused on halving inflation. We are going in the right direction, we may have a little bit of a blip in September, bear with us because it’s predicted by the very clever maths wonks in the Treasury but we are absolutely in the right direction for the end of the year.
Those TRG colleagues of Atkins in more marginal seats will just be hoping she’s right…
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