There will be no leader’s speech in Birmingham. The nominal leader of the party, Rishi Sunak, headed home on Sunday after a private sign-off to a party members meeting.
There is no message here. No policy to try to sell to the wider public. And no more heroes.
Hammered into their worst general election defeat in centuries. Only two in ten of those eligible to vote put their cross in a Conservative box.
Ah, the Tory Party Conference in Birmingham—where political theatre meets pantomime, only with fewer jokes and more awkward policy announcements.
It’s like stepping into an alternate reality where no one seems to have noticed the fire raging outside the windows. You’d think this was a peculiar festival of Victorian ideals, resurrected for one last hurrah.
Welcome, my friends, to the annual Conservative Carnival of Cluelessness.
The mood?
Well, it’s half-celebration, half-post-mortem, with delegates gleefully pointing out Labour’s slip-ups as if that’s going to fix the crater-sized hole they’ve dug themselves into.
“At least we’re not them,” they mutter, perhaps forgetting they were the ones who hired the proverbial bulldozer. And what’s the grand solution to their woes?
Dust off Liz Truss and roll her back out like some sort of political Lazarus.
Yes, Truss is back—full of the same old “I could’ve done better than Rishi” bravado, as if her brief stint in power didn’t send the economy into a tailspin.
It’s like inviting the captain of the Titanic to a shipbuilding conference. “I’ve learned my lesson!” she cries, as if the iceberg wasn’t visible from miles away.
And then, of course, there’s Lord Frost, who has graciously arrived to remind us all that the future of energy is… gas.
That’s right, forget those pesky windmills and solar panels.
Who needs renewable energy when we can continue burning dinosaurs?
His solution to climate change? “Just adapt.” Brilliant.
I assume that means we should all invest in snorkels and SPF 1000 while we await our new underwater cities. The crowd, a sea of silver hair and slightly out-of-touch enthusiasm, erupts in applause.
The younger ones—those few brave souls who believe in net zero—glance around nervously, wondering if they’ve stumbled into the wrong party.
But wait, it gets better!
We’ve got fringe meetings with titles like “What went wrong?” led by Conservative luminaries who, despite being loathed by the public, still seem to believe they can claw their way back into power.
Rachel Wolf bravely takes to the stage and declares, “We are loathed.”
Well, there’s nothing like a bit of honesty. But not to worry, the ever-optimistic Tim Bale reminds us that the Tories are still the “natural party of government.”
Yes, natural—like a particularly stubborn rash that just won’t go away.
The leadership contest?
Oh, it’s like Groundhog Day, but without the charm.
Each candidate struts about, pretending they’re not eyeing up the same shrinking pool of votes. The air in Birmingham’s conference hall is thick with the smell of desperation and expensive aftershave, as Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat, and James Cleverly jostle for attention.
The party has even charged them £150,000 for the privilege of standing! Apparently, running for leadership in the Conservative Party now costs about the same as a starter home in Surrey. Just don’t mention the housing crisis.
Speaking of Kemi Badenoch, she’s here with her bright ideas—none of which, of course, are actually specific.
Why bother with details when you’re predicting years in the wilderness?
She’s already retracted comments about maternity pay being “excessive” for businesses, which, shockingly, didn’t go down too well with the public. But don’t worry, she’s still got time to argue about cultural superiority and Israel with all the subtlety of a Twitter spat.
Meanwhile, Jenrick, the ever-slick operator, is quietly positioning himself for the top spot, hoping to sidestep Badenoch’s culture war landmines. In a move that can only be described as spectacularly misjudged, the party faithful cling to the hope that gloating over Labour’s early fumbles will somehow bring the old pendulum of British politics swinging back their way.
“It’s fine,” they murmur. “We’ll just wait it out. Labour will mess it all up.”
Yes, because that’s a solid electoral strategy: do nothing and hope your opponents trip over their own shoelaces.
All in all, it’s like watching a soap opera where the plotlines have become too ridiculous to follow, but the actors are still giving it their all.
You have to admire their commitment. And as the conference drags on, with no leader’s speech, no forward momentum, and no catharsis, one can’t help but think that this whole charade is less about “reviewing and rebuilding” and more about prolonging the inevitable.
So here we are, watching as the once-mighty Conservative Party clings to its old mantras—small state, low taxes, privatisation—like they’re a life raft in a storm.
But the storm is here, and the life raft?
It’s got a big, Brexit-shaped hole in it. Thanks Dave !
And yet, in this peculiar echo chamber, the Tories keep rowing, convinced that somehow, some way, they’ll make it to the other side.
You’ve got to hand it to them—it takes a special kind of delusion to keep smiling while the ship goes down.
I am so tried and don’t want to listen and talk until Friday
Cheers,
Will-I-am Not-Wordsworth
