Given the appalling election wipeout inflicted on the Tories by a fed-up public, their annual gathering in Birmingham should feel like a massive corporate-sponsored funeral.
Counter-intuitively, however, the mood here is in fact more buoyant than Labour’s conference in Liverpool last week.
While Sir Keir has secured Labour’s largest majority for nearly 30 years, his first 80 days in office have dealt a blow to both the public’s confidence in Labour, and Labour’s confidence in themselves.
Sleaze, infighting, briefings, scandal, rows, and Winter Fuel have all inflicted a damaging toll on Sir Keir much quicker than the could have dared believe just two months ago.
While there is a funereal air here in Birmingham, it feels more like a funeral where everyone has just been informed that they were left a whopper of an inheritance in the will.
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Behind the scenes at Tory Party conference (Image: Express)
Things are bad, but there is a huge opportunity on the horizon – and one of the four leadership candidates can help them get there.
But first, they must actually pick who will replace .
Despite the passionate debating and arguing, relations between all four appear largely convivial.
Behind the scenes Robert Jenrick, and Tom Tugendhat have all been getting along marvellously at private drinks receptions, chatting and quaffing late into the night.
Kemi Badenoch, who claims she doesn’t pick arguments with all the sincerity of claiming he’s telling the truth, has managed to have a row with Robert Jenrick’s team, the NHS and pregnant mothers all in the space of 36 hours. If arguing helped the economy, she could be the key to solving Britain’s productivity crisis.
Inside the hall there are the usual stalls full of free tat, though for once the corporate sponsors are being crowded out by the sheer level of merchandising by the four leadership candidates.
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Almost all of them are laden with branded hats, tote bags, pens, lanyards, badges, sweets, phone battery banks and wallets.
I feel sorry for whoever in Ms Badenoch’s team was tasked with putting stickers of her name on hundreds of apples – the symbolism of which appeared to evade even those manning her stall.
By contrast, Tom Tugendhat and his campaign team are creating a huge buzz with their freebies, least of all their Tom Tugend-tan – bottles of spray-on fake tan being used by conference-goers to delude themselves that the weather in Birmingham is nicer than it really is.
The rows will go on for the next two days, but for now, most people here will only be thinking about where will be serving the best free drinks at 6pm.