Political party conferences can be weird events - where positive thinking and hopeful rhetoric can crowd out reality. If you spend enough time drinking and socialising with like-minded people anything can seem possible. That could be one explanation for the upbeat mood of this year's Conservative gathering in Birmingham.
On the face of it, the party has made little progress since it was emphatically ejected from power in 2024. If an election was held tomorrow, it would do even worse than it did back then, according to some polls. Yet senior figures, including leader Kemi Badenoch, are talking about winning the next general election outright and forming a government.
One reason for their optimism is that they appear to have seen off, for now, the threat of being destroyed or swallowed up by Reform UK - a prospect which hung over last year's conference amid swirling rumours of defections and speculation about deals with Nigel Farage. Another is Badenoch herself, who appears to have made a positive impression on the public. Her approval rating has soared in recent months and she is now one of only two party leaders with a net positive rating (the other being Prime Minister Andy Burnham), according to pollsters More In Common., external In a presentation to a packed fringe meeting, More In Common's Luke Tryl said the Tory leader is seen as a "breath of fresh air" by focus groups, with many voters on the right describing her as someone unafraid to "say it as it is".
In particular, her punchy performances at Prime Minister's Questions have made a strong impression, earning plaudits such as "intelligent", "professional" and "principled" from those who have seen her in action, according to Tryl. But like Burnham, Badenoch's personal popularity has yet to transfer to her party, he added, with the Tories being seen as "outdated" and "divided". It was not all gloom – in contrast to his presentation at last year's Tory conference – and there were "signs of recovery", Tryl said, with a large pool of voters out there who might consider voting Tory, under the right circumstances.
Conservatives freely admit the problem they have got is that voters don't trust them to deliver on any of their promises, when they had 14 years in government to do something about the problems they now say are so pressing. "Of course, Kemi's ahead of us, we know that," Conservative chairman Kevin Hollinrake told the More in Common meeting. "Because people do trust Kemi and they don't trust us, that's how I would put it in a nutshell.
Badenoch answers the trust question by saying that the party is under new management now. She has ditched some of the "culture war" rhetoric and is focusing hard on the economy, and setting out her guiding principles, which amount to a return to old-school Conservatism. She is not saying that the party could win an election outright if it was held now, arguing that no one could.
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