Is this year’s Tory conference slogan the worst ever?

Boris Johnson got plenty of things wrong as prime minister but he at least knew how to come up with a punchy slogan. ‘Get Brexit done’, was the tagline of his October 2019 Tory conference. It was a work of genius: both sides of the referendum, exhausted by infighting and frankly bored with Brexit, could get behind that sentiment. Its simplicity might have been deceptive but it summed up what people wanted: to move on. In a few more words, ‘invest in our NHS, schools and police’, it offered a winning idea. With hindsight, it’s no surprise that Boris won so decisively a few weeks later at the snap general election.

The slogan of Rishi Sunak’s conference this year in Manchester is more likely to send people to sleep than encourage them to vote for the Tories: ‘Long-term decisions for a brighter future’. In seven words it captures nothing; the tagline appears to have been lifted from a PowerPoint presentation.