The old jokes are the best. When I arrived in Birmingham on Sunday evening for the Tory party conference, I immediately ran into a former Downing Street bigwig. ‘The Conservative party has two modes – panic and complacency,’ he noted. ‘Last year was panic. This year it’s complacency.’

Twelve months ago, everyone was miserable. Kemi Badenoch’s leadership was on the line and the Tories were on between 17  and 22 per cent in the polls. This year, everyone was delirious at having survived and congratulating themselves on having located a vast political battleground vacated by the leftward-lurching Andy Burnham and the rightward-lurching Reform UK. Badenoch’s personal ratings have soared and the Tories poll… er, between 17 and 22 per cent.

A previously impeccable source inside Conservative campaign HQ says that the party membership has dropped below 100,000 for the first time in as long as anyone can remember. Badenoch’s team deny this but won’t comment. However, the insider says attempts to artificially inflate the number by not striking off people who haven’t paid their subs, or whose card details have changed, have failed to keep the numbers in six figures.

‘We used to be the baddies in town but now it’s Reform. People don’t feel guilty about voting for us’

‘We used to be the baddies in town but now it’s Reform. People don’t feel guilty about voting for us’

The reason for the optimism, though, is that Badenoch’s team finally has a strategy, as mapped out by Stephen Gilbert, the veteran politico, at an away day in Westminster just before the conference recess. Counter-intuitively, it........

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