Yet the bars of Manchester, as in Liverpool last week, were haunted by a sense of impending doom. Upstart Reform still has a runaway poll lead over the two main parties. A general election isn’t expected until 2029, yet many of Starmer and Badenoch’s own MPs believe each could face leadership challenges after May 2026 elections in Scotland, Wales and England that will provide a major test of the public mood.
Polling by the Opinium market researcher, conducted last week, found Starmer’s approval rating had slipped backwards (to net minus 44 points, down 3 points in a week) after his conference. Likewise, Badenoch’s flurry of policy announcements failed to land on most front pages or the tops of news bulletins — while a million people saw an X post about “Britain” being spelled wrong on a promotional Tory chocolate bar. (Press officers blamed a printing error.)
That moment underscored, again, the challenge facing both main parties. “Conferences alone rarely move the dial. The vast majority of the public pay little to no attention,” said Patrick English, YouGov’s director of political analytics. “What we are looking for really is … what cuts through to the few seconds of clips which will make it into news feeds and television screens? Will it look like unity, competence, and connectedness, or division, distraction, and distance?”
At first glance, the mood at the Tory conference resembled unity and frenetic activity. Yet underneath, profound questions remain about the party’s relevance, direction and leadership, as well as whether the center right can hold — and whether Britain’s oldest political party will survive the challenge from Reform. And that’s before Labour’s November budget and the May elections rewrite the narrative again.
Nothing lands
Badenoch’s speech in Manchester came eight years after the worst hour of Theresa May’s career. The then-prime minister struggled through a cough while a comedian handed her a fake redundancy notice and her slogan peeled off the back wall.
A performance like that would have finished Badenoch, observed one shadow Cabinet minister; instead, she was a “lucky general.” (Like several other MPs, aides and activists quoted in this piece, this person was granted anonymity to speak frankly.)
