Mere hours before the government’s screeching U-turn on the 45p tax rate, Conservatives in Communications prematurely celebrated the death of irony by raising a glass to… the Tories’ comms strategy. Making an impromptu speech was none other than Penny Mordaunt, who joked:

“What have we learnt so far at conference? We’ve learnt that our policies are great, but our comms is shit…”

Well, at least one of those “great” policies now doesn’t even exist. Mordaunt also insisted the party has got to “modernise [its] mandate” and get parliament working, although only after host Adam Honeysett-Watts had to tell the crowd to shut up and listen. Unfortunately, most of the attendees were far more interested in guzzling free booze and chatting to each other. “It’s Conservatives in Communications, and they want us to stop communicating”, so the joke in the crowd went…

Hat-tip: Aubrey Allegretti