The great Tory dilemma: try to win or prepare for defeat?

What are the Conservatives putting the most effort into: winning the next election, or life after defeat? While Rishi Sunak and some of his top team, including the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, still sincerely believe that there is a good chance that they could win the election, other Conservatives have switched their focus to what happens afterwards. That’s why Liz Truss has been on the fringe, why senior cabinet ministers have been making comments that they know will be viewed as a tilt at a future leadership contest, and why this does not feel like a pre-election party conference.

Kemi Badenoch’s speech to the hall yesterday received the first sincerely warm round of applause that I’ve seen at this conference. She took great care to praise Rishi Sunak, but she also had a personal passage about Britain being the best place in the world to be a black person. Supporters of Badenoch had expected something interesting in her speech, and while she wasn’t undermining the current Prime Minister, she was also setting out her brand of Conservatism in a manner that will do her no harm when there is a contest.

Truss, meanwhile, has been delighting in the amount of attention and approval she has received from activists as the last leader they actually elected.