When Michael Heseltine wrote for The Independent this week, he was in barely disguised despair at the state of the Conservative Party. With good reason.
More than a year after a devastating election loss, the party is languishing even lower in the polls and seems unsure how to tackle the growing existential threat posed by Nigel Farage.
With the membership gathered in Manchester, Lord Heseltine called on Conservatives to unite against "the Trump mouthpiece", as he memorably branded the Reform UK leader: "I want the Conservatives back in power. It is time that the party wakes up."
The former deputy prime minister wasn't the only commentator in no doubt that the Tories need shaking from their stupor. Fearing that its conference would be an exercise in going through the motions, John Rentoul wondered if the party was now "slouching towards" irrelevance. He wrote: "The defeat of the Tories last year was not just a swing of the pendulum; it was the first step to oblivion.... it is hard to see what can prevent Reform UK from winning more seats than the Tories at the next election."
Victoria Richards declared the Conservative Party out of touch and utterly irrelevant to the lives of young people. To save itself, it must stop ignoring the next generation. "Gen Z is increasingly attracted to polarised parties on the hard-right and hard-left," she mused. "Young people are Reform, Green, and nothing in between. Reform is surging with Gen Z thanks to its presence on TikTok. Those tempted by their divisive rhetoric are unemployed, skint, depressed – and they want to feel galvanised. The Tory party doesn't speak the same language."
Chris Blackhurst diagnosed another course of action to see off Conservative malaise – to become the party of business again. His argument: "The Tories should dust off their credentials as the party for enterprise and commerce; the one political organisation that stands for the creation of wealth, and with it, jobs. The Tories may be languishing in the polls, but the private sector still backs them, regardless. It desperately desires the party to come again."
Judging from her unexpectedly energising first conference address as party leader, Kemi Badenoch has at least been listening. In her speech, she pledged that one of her first acts as prime minister would be not just to cut, but abolish stamp duty, the much-hated property tax that strangles social mobility, preventing many from up- or downsizing.
According to Wednesday's leader column, Badenoch's vote-winning stamp duty plan – a real rabbit out of the hat – was "revealed […] with a certain amount of playful teasing during her peroration, which made the announcement even more dramatic. It was probably the best news the Tories have had since before the pandemic."
All this, and a poor outcome for Robert Jenrick, Badenoch's supposed leadership rival: Rentoul thought his bizarre conference performance – in which he appeared to ventriloquise with an empty judge's wig – was a sign he had "flubbed" his audition for the Tory throne.
Normal service resumes in the Commons next week. Until then, then…
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