Kemi Badenoch often likes to claim that the Conservative Party is her ‘family’ and there is plenty of evidence to suggest that members feel the same way. After four days in Birmingham, one of the most obvious conclusions is just how happy and united the party is behind her, at both an elite and activist level. Twelve months after a somewhat underwhelming conference, redeemed by an impressive speech on the final day, this year’s jamboree has seen much a confident and consistent outing by Badenoch. At the Conservative Home reception on Sunday, she was practically purring, cracking jokes about Andy Burnham’s ‘stamina’ and being able to ‘sit back and lie there’. There was the occasional clunky media performance, such as her somewhat unsatisfactory answers to LBC on a British ‘iron dome’. Overall though, her team will be happy with this outing.

As my colleague Isabel Hardman notes, she has been helped this year by the party having a series of original flourishes. The ‘Birmingham tapesty’ was inspired, playing, as it did, on the monstrous egos of the lobby by deigning to include only fourteen, somewhat flattering, depictions of some of Britain’s leading journalists. ‘They all keep tweeting it out’ crowed one aide, delightedly. The product of Marcus Natale and the evil geniuses of the Conservative Research Department, it served as useful ‘dead cat’ too, directing conversation to the failures of the Labour government, rather than the lack of business stands highlighted by one ex-MP. An accompanying video by Alex Burghart, the party’s in-house historian, offered an amusing reminder of the kind of ‘Toryism which dare not speak its name’ which has traditionally aided Conservative fortunes. ‘We need to lean into the Tory historian thing’, remarked one candidate, reflecting on the party’s traditional basis with the National Trust and Church of England.

‘We need to lean into the Tory historian thing’, remarked one candidate.

‘We need to lean into the Tory historian thing’, remarked one candidate.

Other innovations included Victoria Hewson, the party’s head of policy development, holding a Sunday briefing for free-market and centre-right think-tanks to explain the party’s direction – a useful way of swapping ideas and securing a degree of buy-in. ‘Why on earth weren’t we doing this in government?’ asked one attendee. Badenoch’s 100-page The Right Way was well-received across the party, offering a kind of anchor for the storms the Conservatives expect to weather should they end up in........

© The Spectator