Spooky season came early to Manchester this year. Outside the convention centre, a baffled, shattered city reels from the latest round of political violence, but inside, eyeless mannequins of Margaret Thatcher stare out over an empty exhibition hall where what remains of the Conservative party tries to understand what went wrong.

There’s something macabre about this Tory conference. It could be one of those pre-crash horror films where the protagonist doesn’t realise they’ve been dead all along. I’m reminded of Nicole Kidman, rattling mad-eyed around that dark mansion in The Others , fretting through her old routines, refusing to accept the reality of her self-made hell where she slaughtered her children, and then herself, and then the world moved on. The shadow cabinet should watch it.

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