The Conservative Party Conference

2023 was never going to be a particularly good year for the Conservative Party. Boris Johnson’s resignation and Liz Truss’s turbulent tenure left the Conservatives vulnerable in 2023, and Rishi Sunak’s damage control efforts have proven ineffective.

Nonetheless, the Tories managed to outdo all expectations and put on a worse conference than anyone could have expected. Even in 1996, on the eve of the Conservative’s worst defeat in history, then Prime Minister John Major managed to muster enough enthusiasm from party members to fill the conference hall, whilst speeches by today’s Tory ministers today attracted a smaller audience, forcing a downsize.

Meanwhile, party members flocked to the speeches given by Liz Truss and her close allies Priti Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg, a clear sign that the party membership still prefer Truss over Sunak, despite the former’s vast unpopularity with the general public and her disastrous economic policies.

Still, Sunak certainly didn’t help himself after seemingly abandoning his party’s commitment to the ‘levelling up’ agenda when he announced the scrapping of the Manchester HS2 leg… whilst hosting his conference in Manchester. This news came much to the chagrin of Mancunians including Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham who described the move as a “disaster” for the North.

Still, it’s not like Sunak ever had much hope of winning many Manchester seats at the next election, as it’s still far from certain that he’ll win re-election to his own seat, as political forecaster ‘Electoral Calculus’ only puts him about three points ahead in his Yorkshire constituency.

Regardless, the downsizing of HS2 shows a distinct lack of ambition and direction within the Conservative Party; shuffling from one policy u turn to the next like the reanimated corpse of the party that soared to victory just four years ago.

The Labour Party Conference

However, just an hour’s drive west in Liverpool, the Labour Party’s conference had a far more positive atmosphere. Whilst it certainly can’t compare to the energetic extravaganzas of the mid 90s, it was a vast improvement on recent conferences such as the 2021 Brighton conferences, where videos of Young Labour members and Corbynites shouting comrade and quoting Che Guevera were circled widely, undermining the party leadership’s attempts to moderate and modernise.

This year, such factional divides were much less on display. That’s not to say such divides no longer exist – because they do – but rather they were consigned to closed door discussions and fringe events. Even the glitter bombing of Starmer by a PR campaigner right before his keynote speech was played off well, with limited edition ‘Sparkle with Starmer’ t-shirts circulating the Labour store shortly afterwards.

Party leadership also made a series of policy pledges, though whether Starmer sticks to them is up for debate, given his history of breaking pledges. Labour leaders announced plans to build more affordable housing, eliminate non-dom tax status to fund the NHS, and address workplace sexual harassment.

What does this means for the next election?

If this conference season is anything to go by, then the next election does not bode well for Sunak’s Conservatives. Ongoing economic problems, a divided party, and a Prime Minister with no vision for the country does not go down well with the public, and they will punish the government at the next election. If not enough to secure an outright Labour victory, then at least enough to prevent a Tory majority.

Conversely, the Labour Party has positioned itself as a government-in-waiting, and its recent unveiling of policies will only bolster their chances of victory. Nonetheless, a lot could happen between now and next year, and Labour shouldn’t get comfortable with its poll lead.

The two images (in order of appearance) used in this article are by the Office of the Prime Minister and Chatham House, and licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 and CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED licence respectively.