The conference offers a flailing leader, Trumpite policies and rivals jockeying for position. It is comical, but also worrying
I
f last year’s general election marked the death of the Conservative party, this week’s conference in Manchester is the wake. Based on the policies unveiled in recent days, one can only assume there’s an open bar.
Watching Kemi Badenoch kick things off on Sunday by setting out plans to leave the European convention on human rights (EHCR), it was hard to know what to focus on: the unhinged idea or remembering who exactly Badenoch was. Kimmy, is it? I’m trying to place her. Since being elected last November, the former engineer has turned being the leader of the opposition into a part-time job to the extent that you half expected conference to start with a missing person’s appeal.
Still, she’s here now! And she’s making up for lost time. Badenoch’s pledge to get rid of the landmark Climate Change Act was dismissed as “catastrophic” by former prime minister Theresa May, business groups, scientists and the Church of England before delegates had even made it up the M40. Not that we should be worried. You can trust Badenoch’s scientific credentials. She thinks she was offered a place to study for a (pre) medical degree.
