Gove

Tory conference has long been more stage-managed than other party meetings, but this year the official speeches from ministers have also been condensed into a very strange late afternoon slot lasting just two hours. The rest of the time is free for fringe meetings and plotting. Ministers and their aides have been told they have to keep their addresses to the hall announcement-lite, which makes those two hours feel largely pointless. Kwasi Kwarteng didn’t announce very much at all, even though his two U-turns have dominated the day’s agenda. This morning, the Chancellor dropped the plan to abolish the 45p rate of tax, and this evening it has emerged that

Michael Gove has endorsed Kemi Badenoch for Tory leader. Badenoch, who was one of his junior ministers at the Department for Levelling Up, is described by Gove as ‘Keir Starmer’s worst nightmare’ and she has a ‘focus intellect and no-bulls**t drive’. Gove’s support is a coup for Badenoch. It is not every day that someone throws their weight behind someone who was their junior minister until a few days ago. Gove makes a typically eloquent case. But the jump for Badenoch from being a minister of state to being prime minister would be immense. The challenge for her is persuading 120 MPs – the final-two threshold – that she can make that

‘This government ends if the red wall reverts back to type and we lose 45 seats then end up in hung parliament territory,’ warns one secretary of state. This comment is a reminder of how vital it is for Boris that levelling up is seen to be a success. The rewards of getting it right are considerable. The Tories’ reward for that would probably be another decade in power: one cabinet loyalist says, ‘The boss wants to see a world where Labour are shut out. We consolidate the red wall.’  Michael Gove and Andy Haldane have found inspiration in 15th-century Florence But fixing regional disparities isn’t easy: it is hard to find