Newsletter #57: Tory Conference Reviewed

PLUS: Britain's relationship with China, and peace in Israel and Gaza?

Good afternoon,

Today, we wrap up our coverage of conference season, and touch on an issue which has been quietly simmering for some time, but which looks likely to be Starmer’s first controversy following MPs’ return to Parliament. Plus - an update on Donald Trump’s quest for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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This newsletter’s agenda: Conservative Party Conference reviewed (Free/Paid); Is Starmer looking for rapprochement with China? (Paid); Peace in the Middle East? (Paid).

Conservative Party Conference reviewed

Kemi Badenoch became the second of two party leaders to come out of a party conference in better condition than they came in this week, although neither has yet seen any improvement in the polls to reflect this. That convincing the party faithful to give you a round of applause and a couple of months without a leadership challenge is seen as an impressive achievement for the leaders of both of Britain’s main political parties shows just how dire their situation is - especially when they sit at a combined vote share comfortably below 40%.

Nevertheless, the good sentiment around the Tories’ performance is not entirely unwarranted, and it is impressive to have left such an impression with a conference that even most Conservative Party members didn’t bother to turn up to. Whilst not quite the historic oratory achievement some have built it up to be, Badenoch’s headline speech on Wednesday was a marked deviation from her previous performances. For the first time, the Tory leader appeared eager to outline her understanding of the problems Britain faces, and to offer at least some of the solutions her party would put in place in the unlikely event of their victory at the next general election. Her speech landed some effective criticism of Starmer, and even managed to be funny in places - not the easiest thing to achieve, especially when party morale is so low.

Badenoch began her speech by arguing that only by delivering on the economy and on immigration could Britain avoid the decline felt across every aspect of national life, from national security and public order to education and healthcare. She did a good job of conveying her own history with the Conservative Party before pivoting into the party’s history in government, reminding voters of their historical successes whilst implying what she called ‘the challenges of our generation’ cannot simply be addressed by reheating the political platform of the 1980s. She attacked the government over taxes, welfare spending, and employment. Her rejection of stagnation continued, referencing competition with India and Poland as examples of how far we have fallen over the past two decades.

When it came to solutions, Badenoch reaffirmed her commitment to leaving the ECHR, and to deporting 150,000 illegal immigrants. On welfare, she declared that a Conservative government would end access to benefits for non-citizens, tighten the eligibility criteria for benefits on the basis of mental health conditions, and restrict access to motability to those with the most serious disabilities. She proposed cutting the civil service by almost 25% (back to 2016 levels), removing responsibilities from the police which distract them from law enforcement (allowing a tripling of stop-and-search), and banning doctors from going on strike. On Education, she pledged a reversal of restrictions on academies and the abolition of low-value degrees, with the money saved funding a doubling of apprenticeships.

The centerpiece of Badenoch’s pitch was on fiscal responsibility, where she attempted to draw a clear distinction between her party and Reform. Pledging at least half of all savings to deficit reduction, she announced cuts of $7bn to foreign aid, $8bn to the civil service, and $23bn to welfare. She declared her intent to abolish current net zero targets, along with taxes on fossil fuels, and open up North Sea oil for extraction. Finally - and to much applause from the audience - she announced that she would abolish stamp duty entirely for primary residences.

What are we to make of these announcements? First of all, credit where it’s due. Whilst many of these measures may not go far enough to address the scale of the disaster this country faces, the overall assessment of how things are going wrong and what must be done to turn them around is the right one, at least to the limited extent one can hope for from the Conservative Party. Badenoch’s speech was, therefore, exactly what it needed to be to launch her party’s attempted return to the national conversation - although it remains to be seen whether anyone is ready to listen.

Particularly refreshing was Badenoch’s willingness to hold the line against spiralling welfare spending, especially in the face of Farage’s weakness on the issue. Politically speaking, it is undoubtedly the right call for the Tories to focus solely on the economy to the extent it is possible to do so, despite the fact that immigration is still the more important issue for the country and for voters. As Keir Starmer has discovered, attempting to compete with Reform on this issue only gives Farage greater strength because he is the person voters trust to take radical action. The few times Badenoch did mention Reform, it was to attack them over their support for welfare spending. That said, this strategy can only work if the Conservatives leave no space for Reform to attack them on immigration, which would require matching Reform’s commitment to reverse the Boriswave and fundamentally overhaul legal immigration going forwards. Not only has Badenoch failed to do this, her speech included no commitments whatsoever on legal migration.

The worst part of Badenoch’s platform, though it may be initially tempting to many readers, was her proposed cuts to the civil service. Whilst reductions in government spending will be necessary, and despite the undoubted fact that many generously salaried mandarins contribute very little to the effective running of the state, it is frustrating to see the Conservatives once again going down the dead end of blindly hacking at the state to reduce expenditure. Simply requiring existing departments to reduce headcounts will not produce a more efficiently run government, but it will further decrease the state’s already barely existing capacity to address the country’s existential problems. The only viable approach to reducing waste is a ground-up rebuilding of departments based on new mission statements which clearly define each organisation’s goals and responsibilities - and anything short of that will only worsen both sides of this problem.

Whilst Badenoch’s speech certainly stole the show, she was not the only one who had announcements for the party in Manchester last week. Mel Stride, whose position as shadow chancellor remains a source of dismay to us at The Pimlico Journal, gave a rather weak speech overall, but made headlines with his announcement that high street shops, pubs, and restaurants would be exempted from business rates under his plans to revitalise town centres and stimulate economic activity.

Whilst a valid policy in its own right, I doubt that tax cuts would save high street businesses whose fundamental problem is that nobody wants to be in town centres any more. The decline of the high street is a consequence of falling living standards, rising crime, general decay and visual repugnance, and of course immigration making the experience of visiting such places increasingly alienating, even outside of the big cities. Nevertheless, at least there’s something here to help pubs in particular cling on until something more radical can be done.