Badenoch is the best the Tories have got

What an ordeal. If there is one thing more trying than watching a leader’s speech at a party conference, it is watching four of them in a row – four doses of platitudes, jokes that miss the mark, personal anecdotes about their childhood and parents which are supposed to build up a sense of character but instead make you groan because you have heard them a dozen times before.

Tom Tugendhat came across as a middle manager on a public speaking course. Never mind where he wanted to take the country – he didn’t seem sure how and in which direction he was supposed to leave the stage after his low-energy presentation. James Cleverly had a good story about how, as an army reservist, he thought he was being mobilised and sent to Basra, when in fact he was being sent to Luton. But otherwise, he came across as wooden and ponderous.