Conservative conference 2025 is for hardcore loyalists and, as it turns out, there aren’t that many. Only 250 bothered to attend shadow Chancellor Sir Mel Stride’s keynote speech on Monday.

In theory, Stride is the man who could run the economy when a fiercely unpopular Labour Party tumbles from power in 2029. The trouble is no one believes it, not even Stride’s own party.

In Manchester, there is no mood of despair; more one of emptiness. In some rooms the tumbleweed feels lonely. On the plus side, MPs can get an overpriced drink at the Midland Hotel bar without having to elbow a lobbyist in the face.

And the reason the Tories aren’t yet getting a fair hearing , according to some of their own MPs? Some say it’s simply time: the Tories need to just wait for the political pendulum to s

See Full Page