Reflections from Conservative Party Conference 2025
In October 2024 the Conservative Party faithful met in Birmingham with the main topic of debate being who should be the next leader of the party. From a choice between Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick the party’s membership plumped for Badenoch.
One year later the party decamped to Manchester and the expectation was that the conference would be dominated by further leadership speculation. This time the question was how much longer Kemi Badenoch could continue as leader and, if she were to be ditched, who would replace her. Her big speech on Wednesday morning had a huge amount riding on it.
Prior to setting off to Manchester I wrote a LinkedIn post in which I said that too many in the public affairs sector had called time on the Tory Party too soon. It’s still the party that forms His Majesty’s loyal opposition, has 120 MPs, two combined authority mayors and a significant base in local government.
In terms of numbers attending, this conference was easily the quietest of all the Conservative Party conferences that I’ve ever been to. It wasn’t disastrously quiet though. The bars were still buzzing, the drinks receptions still full and the fringe meetings were often standing room only. In the main hall the organisers did make the rookie error or putting out hundreds of chairs before anyone arrived. At even the most popular of events this would give photographers the opportunity to get images of empty seats at some point during the day. They will have learnt from this though.
Having been to the Reform and Liberal Democrat conferences earlier in the season it was also very obvious that, whatever your view of their politics, the Conservatives still have plenty more of those political ‘big beasts’. While none of the former Prime Ministers (and lets face it there are plenty to choose from) were in attendance if you stood still for five minutes you were sure to see a Rt Hon walking past. Much as the two aforementioned parties are on the march they simply can’t pull out the same political heft.
As with the Labour Party conference the week before “Build Baby Build” was the mantra on many lips. The main difference was that the caps were blue not red and here, the Party Chairman and the shadow Secretary of State for Housing were even donning hard hats.
The events organised by Cratus were as well attended as ever. Friends of Cratus including MPs Mims Davies, Ben Spencer and Kieran Mullen were great sports at our annual Sunday night curry. James Cleverly engaged with council leaders at lunch with the nations best housebuilder Vistry on Monday and along with our very own Nicola Richards as support act, Penny Mordaunt stole the show with a rousing speech at our Monday evening drinks reception.
To the main event – did Kemi do enough to see off the pretenders to her throne with her speech on Wednesday? The answer is a very definite “for now”. It was her best performance since becoming leader and the policy announcements landed well with the membership and in the press. Barring any disasters she should now have enough breathing space to go through to the May elections. A further shellacking then would reignite the rebellion though.
Next week, with conference season over politics will return to Westminster and normality. Once back in Westminster the Conservative Party and public affairs practitioners will be reminded quickly, if any of us need a reminder, that the Labour party is still, by a country mile, the big game in town. With three and half years until the next general election and an overwhelming majority it is Team Starmer who still hold the whip hand in British politics. But for the Tory faithful in Manchester? It was a useful respite and reinvigoration for a party that so desperately needed an injection of hope.
