Patrick English: As conference approaches, the Conservatives’ problem isn’t so much about popularity, it’s getting heard

Dr Patrick English is Director of Political Analytics at YouGov, and their spokesman on political research.

In his speech to Labour Party Conference, Keir Starmer only referenced the Conservative party once, in a joke – “remember them?”

This tongue in cheek reflection of the supplanting of the Conservatives by Reform UK as the opposition in the eyes of the public, if not officially within the parliamentary system, serves as a reminder of the importance of the upcoming Conservative party confidence to the future fortunes of both Kemi Badenoch and the party itself.

Not that the general public will be watching or paying much attention; in much the same way that voters will not know nor care much at all about the comings and goings and ins and outs of Labour party conference (most won’t even really know any of us are here), few public eyes will be cast the way of Manchester next week.

But for the Badenoch and the Conservatives the battle is now for exposure and attention. Party conference offers a rare moment where the media ecosystem will sit and take notice of what it is the Tories actually currently have to say.

Badenoch’s speech will fill column inches, policy announcements will be met with due interest and reported on accordingly. News of the conference will carry on to the airwaves and appear on TV screens, such is the nature of these events. The party is, after all, still the official opposition.

By no means will front page splashes be guaranteed, but there’s a chance for the party to wrestle some attention away from Reform and bring the Conservatives back into the conservations around political opposition to the government.

What the Conservatives cannot afford is for another moment to pass them by.

Another opportunity to demand coverage and attention to be wasted. They are dangerously close to the normalisation of Reform UK as the party, and Nigel Farage as the person, that the public, media, and indeed the political lobby and ecosystem turns to when the question of opposition and future government arises.

And this is happening in a public opinion environment which is, compared to Labour, not even that toxic for the party nor its leader.

The latest YouGov political favourability ratings make dire reading for the government. This month, we found that 71 per cent of the British public have a negative view toward Keir Starmer, compared to just 21 per cent who have a favourable opinion. This net -50 score is the lowest we have ever recorded for the prime minister.

While that -50 score isn’t quite breaking all records like similar figures produced by Ipsos ahead of Labour conference, the numbers are still extremely poor for the prime minister.

For Nigel Farage, those figures are 61 per cent and 30 per cent respectively, for a net score of minus 31. This is your regular reminder that Farage is not a popular politician – though he does get consistently around 30 per cent of the public expressing positive views towards him.

Kemi Badenoch net number looks far more like the Reform leader’s than that of the prime minister. While only 19 per cent of Brits think favourably of the Conservative party leader, only 54 per cent think negative – a net score of -35.

As well, Badenoch is less unpopular than other senior Labour figures such as Rachel Reeves (-49) and Angela Rayner (-40).

Back in August this year – the last time we asked about favourability toward political parties – we recorded net favourability scores of -37 for Labour, -39 for the Conservatives, and -24 for Reform UK. In this regard the Tories do look a little bit more like the party of government in terms of (lack of) popularity, but they are not, as some might expect, cut adrift or in the wilderness in this regard.

All of which when taken together suggests that rather than having a distinct popularity problem, the Conservatives have a problem getting heard.

While in our news tracker research (where the public tell us in their own words what they’ve been hearing about in the last week) we quite regularly see the public reporting stories about Labour, Starmer, the government, Farage, and Reform, I cannot recall the last time we saw the public telling us about anything the Conservatives or Badenoch has said or done.

The Conservatives may have been for now shuffled aside as the principle party of opposition, but they do not have a uniquely unpopular position with the British public.

Next week in Manchester offers them a golden opportunity to make inroads into breaking the association between Reform and Farage with British political opposition, and getting Badenoch and the Conservatives back on the political map. A rare moment where eyes and ears are on them and what they have to say.

For their sake, it is an opportunity they simply cannot miss. They must come to the Conference armed with a clear plan to make headlines and make interventions which will find their way to the news feeds and television screens of ordinary voters. If they don’t, it will only further normalise the idea that Reform, not the Conservatives, are the true opposition.