A pared-down version of the official Tory conference programme has gone live on the Conservatives’ official website. It’s a straightforward affair compared to previous years, and looks like the programme has more member-led elements than usual. Grist for the hacks…
There are short speeches from most Shadow Cabinet ministers and from the leaders of the Scottish and Welsh Conservatives. Eye-catchingly, there will be main stage sessions on “the meaning of sex: gender critical debate” and “big tech on trial”, which will discuss the Online Safety Act. A piece of legislation introduced by the, er, Conservatives…
It doesn’t look like there is space on the main podium for the brightest backbench performers such as Katie Lam and Nick Timothy. All eyes on the leader’s speech then…
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick told GB News that he profoundly disagrees with former campaign manager and now Reform MP Danny Kruger that the Conservative Party is “dead“. He said:
“Well, look, obviously I’m very sad to see Danny leave the Conservative Party. He’s a personal friend of mine and he’s somebody I hold in very high regard. But I disagree with him profoundly on this issue. What I need to do now, and the fellow members of the Conservative Party, is focus on the future. There’s no point looking backwards.”
Kruger said earlier today: “I wished that [Jenrick] had won because I think he would have done things differently”. Jenrick insisted that Kemi was the right person for the job, though that “there’s a mountain to climb”. Tough times for the Tories…
Danny Kruger is, at the time of going to pixel, still the advertised guest speaker at the CPF’s “paving the way to success for the Conservative Party” event. Invites landed in Salisbury Conservative Association members’ inboxes at 13:13 this afternoon, roughly two hours after Kruger declared the party was “over” and he was jumping ship to Reform. The top question up for discussion was to be “are the issues getting better, still the same or getting worse?”…
Luckily they’ve still got ten days to find someone else. Provided they take a slightly more optimistic view on the topics at hand…
Simon Dudley, senior fellow at Tory think tank Onward and former chairman of Homes England, is set to become a new Tory Party Treasurer. Big job in times like these…
Dudley is well-known in the as a pro-housing voice and board member of the new Conservative YIMBY group. He is set to debut his new role in late October with a Tory donor party with Shadow Cabinet figures in attendance. At a ten-bed mansion on the bank of the Thames…
Guido hears Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick will be the keynote speaker. You need a big name to get the donors in post-Conference…
The Tories are still sorting out invites co-ordinated by James Yucel. And they say opposition is no fun…
Vocal Suella Braverman has called Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel’s Illegal Migration Bill a “dead letter.“ Shots across bows…
Braverman has penned a punchy Telegraph piece today on the failure of the Home Office to deal with the small boats crisis. She references Priti’s 2021 bill:
“I asked why we were not prosecuting for illegal entry – after all, it had been made a criminal offence by the Nationality and Borders Act of 2021. The answer revealed the hollowness of our system. The CPS, knowing each migrant could lodge an asylum claim that trumped criminal charges under the Refugee Convention (included in s31 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999), quietly deprioritised enforcement. Border Force and police saw little point in pursuing charges destined to collapse in court. The law, though passed with fanfare, was a dead letter and no minister could go behind “operational independence”.”
Braverman is speaking at the Prosperity Institute tomorrow alongside Richard Tice and David Frost on her plan to leave the ECHR. Interesting speaker list…
Kemi Badenoch is using a speech in the City to offer Starmer Tory co-operation on cutting the welfare bill, warning that Labour are “pushing Britain closer to a bond crisis.” She’ll argue Reeves’ “tax doom loop” has already left households £1,700 worse off, and that the deficit could double over the next five years. Offering Labour a helping hand…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”
