Why are the Conservatives so happy?
For a party that was so thoroughly rejected by the voting public in July’s general election, the mood at the Conservative Party conference is surprisingly upbeat.
Part of this may be relief at being freed from the burden of governing.
“It’s all going horribly wrong but it’s no longer our fault!” said one Tory figure.
“You’d have thought this would have been a wake, but it’s much better than that,” said a senior party official.
Sir Keir Starmer’s early missteps and difficulties in office are also a source of great joy for some here in Birmingham.
“Turns out they’re finding out governing is difficult,” said a former minister with a barely concealed smile.
After enduring years of taunts from Labour about cronyism and sleaze, it’s now the Tories’ turn to make the jokes. Sir Keir Starmer’s expensive eyewear has supplied many a punchline in speeches.
And the leadership contest that is dominating the conference has, for once, put party members at the heart of the action.
Tory conferences can sometimes feel a bit soulless. When the party was in government, the activists were in danger of being outnumbered by corporate lobbyists.
But many lobbyists have switched their attention to Labour, for now, and are giving Birmingham a miss.
Tory officials says a record number of activists have pitched up at this conference – and they are enjoying unprecedented access to senior figures, as the four leadership contenders woo and flatter them.
They are being plied with novelty merchandise, from foam fingers to fake tan, and are packing into the bars every night to debate the relative merits of the four contenders.
But there is no sense that the general public have caught Tory leadership fever. An Ipsos Mori poll suggests 64% of the public don’t care who wins, and very few have much awareness of who the candidates are.
And not everyone in the conference bubble has bought into the celebratory mood.
One MP – a prominent supporter in public of one of the leading candidates – said: “I don’t understand why everyone is so excited.
“I think it’s mostly the members, not the MPs. The members seem to think this is 2005 but it’s pretty clear that none of the candidates are the new David Cameron.”
This is a reference to the last time the party transformed their annual gathering into a talent contest to pick a new leader.
Another former minister expressed concern that all the smiles in Birmingham are sign of denial and delusion.
The party is trying to learn lessons from their catastrophic election defeat.
They are buoyed by the idea that Labour’s massive majority is fragile, and that Sir Keir is not as popular as Tony Blair was in 1997, the last time they were swept from power by a Labour landslide.
But they face an enormous strategic challenge to claw back right-wing support from Reform UK at the same time as winning back Liberal Democrat voters.
They face an equally big demographic challenge.
Former minister Grant Shapps put it in stark terms at the launch of his new Conservatives Together campaign, saying many 2024 Tory voters will not support them next time “because they will be dead”.
The age at which the majority of people vote Conservative, rather than Labour, has risen to 63, the same meeting was told.
And just because Tory members in Birmingham are not crying into their beers, does not mean the party as a whole is in great shape.
The people who give up their time – and spend a small fortune on hotels and transport – to come to party conferences are a small minority of the most dedicated and motivated members.
They don’t necessarily reflect the mood in local party branches, which often struggle to muster enough troops to mount effective campaigns.
Former minister Mims Davies is among those calling for an effort to get younger people to join up.
The MP suggested the party could start by being a bit less weird.
“I call it going to Narnia. You’ve got to get past all the codes, get to the back of the wardrobe, bust through, find this weird and wonderful world of strange customs.
“Everybody knows each other. There’s always a meal at the end of it and a raffle.
“Once you get in you’ve never been happier but you forget to invite people in.”
However broad the smiles are in Birmingham, whoever is unveiled as the new Tory leader on 2 November, will have a job on their hands to turn things round.
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