Will this be Kemi’s last conference?

The Conservative party conference kicks off today in Manchester. Dominating the headlines is the long-awaited announcement that the next Tory government would pull Britain out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). In a break with recent conferences, leader Kemi Badenoch will be making two speeches. The first this afternoon will set out what ECHR-exit would look like. The second on Wednesday will deal with more of what George Bush Sr. called ‘the vision thing’: Badenoch’s big picture for Britain. ‘Stronger economy, stronger borders’ is the party’s slogan for the four-day jamboree. That reflects the two-pronged approach that senior Tory strategists believe is the only way back to power. Fiscal competence is usually the key battleground between Labour and the Tories; mass migrati