'The Conservative Party in 2023 feels a bit like a long-running sitcom limping into its final season.'
Tory MP Grant Shapps was left speaking to a mostly empty room at the Conservative Party conference on Sunday, after party members failed to turn up for his keynote speech.
This year’s Tory conference has been described as a ‘ghost town’ by political commentator Dan Hodges, while in the Telegraph, Madeleine Grant went even further, writing: “The Conservative Party in 2023 feels a bit like a long-running sitcom limping into its final season.”
Such is the dire mood at the party’s conference, that senior Tories have been forced to stuff the front rows of the hall with their own aides so broadcast cameras have people in seats to cut away to during their speeches.
Rather than addressing the challenges facing the country or offering anything meaningful and credible by way of policies, attention at this year’s party conference has turned to who will replace Rishi Sunak in a leadership contest should he lose the next election.
Tory conference is also being dominated by bitter in-fighting in the party over U-turns on net zero policies as well as the scrapping of HS2, which was supposed to be a key part of the government’s levelling up agenda.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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