Matthew Holehouse

Set against this:
- The "golden rule" seems deeply silly.
- Stride's so-called austerity is a diet plan of no broccoli and icecream for breakfast, with cuts only for people tory voters don't like
- Kemi remains more interested in midcentury French theorist Frantz Fanon than tax policy

The stricken Tories reach for the chainsaw A wise move for a party in a dire position

The case for the Tories' pivot from immigration to the economy: 1. Public opinion on tax and spend tends to be thermostatic, and the cycle is on the turn
2. Tax hikes at budget will be unpopuar
3. The Tories have surprising underlying brand strength on fiscal policy www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Notable how very little mention Badenoch gives in her speech to the man who is feasting on the Tories. The only reference: "Whether it’s Starmer, Farage, Corbyn or Davey all these men are shaking the same magic money tree."

Conservative background note on stamp duty talks up the productivity benefits of increased labour mobility from a more fluid housing market. Which is both true and a welcome escape from the anti-mobility logic that took hold under Johnson

"We need bold ideas, a positive vision for our country and a plan to deliver it." A chatbpt leadership bid of a speech this

One of those speeches where "Britain" is used when "We, the incumbent government," would be more accurate.

Jenrick channeling Keats and Housman. Things must be serious

Among many the missed opportunities to draw a line under the last administration, the shadow cabinet's determination to cling to Rwanda - an unpopular scheme that had become a logistical millstone around the party's neck - is among the oddest.

An irony that a party agitated by the “rule of lawyers” is outsourcing its thinking on issues of statecraft to a lawyer who has given a pretty narrow and technical answer

There is the tension. Badenoch’s argument yesterday was that she had kicked the question to Wolfson and he had given the answer to leave. But his report doesn’t imply that: it says that all the big questions around ECHR are political and therefore for her to take.

Similarly: the consequences for Northern Ireland are ultimately political questions not legal ones

Wolfson’s advice on which Badenoch relied to announce ECHR withdrawal: it’s possible this results in parts of the EU TCA being terminated, but it’s a political question

The very same ! They are Her clothes

These three were full of spirit

Good for bowls though

In full…

Been to Manchester central complex many times for conferences and rarely has the main hall been so light on outside exhibitors. Lots of padding with empty stands put up by central party

Full Northern Ireland passage on ECHR from Badenoch's speech

Flashbacks to the last Sunday night conference speech by a Tory leader: Oct 2016. The same combination of panicked base-pleasing policy maximalism and "details, details" handwaving about the consequences of that policy in Northern Ireland.

Shadow NI secretary Alex Burghart has been tasked with "union wide implementation" of ECHR withdrawal in Northern Ireland, says Badenoch, so as to have a "clear, thorough and robust plan" and a "orderly and respectful process." On NI, she says: "Difficulties are not a reason to avoid action".

Renouncing ECHR and repealing ECHR means that Britons will not lose "any of the rights we cherish" because they are a function of common law. Only "spurious claims" by immigrants will go. Everything will change; nothing will change.

Badenoch's argument that Reform's ECHR denouncement policy is rushed and not thought through, whereas her ECHR denouncement policy is based on 200 pages of legal advice ("so forensic, so thorough") may fall down on the fact that the end-point of those policies is identical.

Badenoch's intro video is scenes from the Robinson march interspersed with footage of migrant boats.

I dont think that’s true, or a nice thing to say

“I’m tired of us asking all these irrelevant questions about where they should go… this is a fatalistic and defeatist attitude.” Badenoch on her scheme for mass deportations

British men are driving less, and a culture is vanishing Farewell to the road warriors

‘The average man travelled 8,245 miles in 2002 and 6,549 miles in 2024—a drop of 21%. Almost the entire fall was caused by a decline in driving.’ Such an interesting piece
economist.com/britain/2025...

Shades of Starmer in the new Archbishop of Canterbury's CV, in having reached tthe top of two separate vocations consecutively

An interesting vignette. Asked by BBC Scotland whether Michelle Mone should lose her peerage, Kemi Badenoch says twice that people convicted of crimes should not be in the House of Lords. That is a curious answer as Mone has not been convicted of a crime; DHSC v PPE Medpro is a contractual case.

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I don’t think we’ll let minor details like that stop us