The Tory Party’s vanishing act

The mood before Tory conference has been brighter. Two back to back mega MRP polls put the Party at a predicted fourth place, behind the Liberal Democrats, at either 41 or 45 seats. With two big set piece speeches that play to her strengths, conference could well be better than expected for Kemi Badenoch – especially as expectations are not particularly high. But as one MP put it to me last night: “Conference will be critical for Kemi. Need some rabbits being pulled from hats.”

The latest MRP shows only six members of the shadow cabinet holding their seats, Badenoch among them. Gone are Robert Jenrick and James Cleverly. Eight of the 41 are predicted gains from Labour, leaving only 33 of the current crop of MPs holding on.

The instinct that kicks in to dismiss the polls four years out from an election still lingers. One Tory MP scoffs that “anyone who takes a poll four years out from an election seriously makes me laugh”, recalling the false dawns of the early 2000s, but the problem is that the landscape has shifted – and, as another MP put it grimly, “the difficulty is that it can get worse”.

They add: “There is a growing body of evidence to say that this is not a temporary problem. Not just MRPs but an overall trend of where things have been.”

Reform is storming ahead, either set to form a majority government (More In Common), or a hung Parliament (YouGov). They have led in more than 100 consecutive polls now – and the feeling amongst many Tory MPs, reflected now as they continue to go backwards in the rankings, is that whatever the Party is doing right now is failing to make an impact.

One Tory MP takes comfort in the fact that “the Labour number in the polls are awful too” as the Party meets in Livepool today. Last time they met at their conference the Labour Party was embroiled in freebee-gate, now it is Keir Starmer’s chief of staff under the spotlight for a donations scandal (and that was his second chief of staff to begin with).

Starmer has had his deputy prime minister and housing minister quit over the tax affairs of her own homes, a homelessness minister resign for making people homeless, an anti-corruption minister quit over accusations of corruption, a transport secretary resign over fraud, and had to sack his pick for US ambassador. Now, the most unpopular Prime Minister since the founding of pollster Ipsos faces awkward questions about inheritance tax planning – the same PM who imposed inheritance tax on family farms.

The MRP polls put Labour’s standing at 90 seats (More in Common) and 144 seats (YouGov). It is undoubtedly bad, especially after securing a majority in 2024, that they are now predicted to get their smallest parliamentary Labour Party since 1931. But at least it wouldn’t mark an “extinction threat” as one Tory MP described their standing.

While expectations for Manchester may be low in some senses, a lot is still riding on it for Badenoch. “She really needs to absolutely hit it for six,” one MP says – and both her MPs and members are awaiting some sort of showing.

A moderate Tory MP adds: “I think a lot has been promised that we (elected MPs and members) will be getting some proper policy direction at conference – for us to have something material to say, to sell and to set the direction of ‘Kemi-Conservatism’.

“If it doesn’t hit the mark or falls flat or is not substantive enough after a year of thinking, any remaining benefit of the doubt or grace period will fade very quickly.”

Even a member of Badenoch’s shadow cabinet warns: “She has literally got weeks (probably next week, meaning conference) to show that they [Loto] get it. I can’t see it lasting till May if things stay as they are.” Another adds: “The mood isn’t getting better – morale is being sapped.”

Some MPs cling to the memory of faulty MRPs in past elections – one last night flagged that an MRP just out from the last general election had the Tories on 64 seats and Labour on 484, which turned out to be far off – but they might still do well to heed the warnings on the mood within the Parliamentary Party, before it is too late.

One MP was stark about what it would take to see change: “It is going to take forty MPs to realise it is their responsibility to send a letter to Bob [Blackman, chair of the 1922 committee].” The debate, they said, was on whether or not to move before the next set of local elections in May. The argument raised for holding off is that no new leader wants to have a bad series of results on their shoulders, but as they put it: “What is going to be left by May? I fear those focusing on then may just want to avoid a difficult decision.”

One of their colleagues puts it a different way: “If a crocodile is heading your way, about to attack, surely you do something to try to stop it? It might take your arm but at least you’ll walk away alive. In another word, surely a couple of Senedd seats is better than none.”

“If she does not shift the polls, she will have to be shifted,” another MP tells me. “Sadly I don’t think people have really understood or have psychologically adjusted to accepting how bad it is,” they add, “they seem to think another ski season and things will change”.

As a member of the shadow cabinet puts it, “the whole thing needs a complete shake up”, as those at the top “don’t realise how bad the mood is”.

But a Tory source told me last night: “Kemi has a strong mandate to renew the Conservative Party – but that was never going to happen at the flick of a switch.

“We have been holding the government to account for their failings and endless scandals – leading the charge on Rayner, Mandelson and McSweeney.

“Unlike other parties we have been developing serious plans and policies to address the challenges our country faces – plans we will be setting out at conference.”

They point out that one of the challenges the Party has to face up to is the sense they have treated politics as a circus. Changing leader, they say, would only exacerbate that.

All of that may be true, but the itch is real. “She has got to start changing the perceptions of not only the public, but parliamentarians,” one MP tells me, “and more radical action is needed than the timid approach of this is just what happens”.