Tom Tugendhat fails to rouse the Tories

It is the final day of Tory conference and the event for which we have all been waiting: the four leadership candidates are each delivering their 20-minute speeches, setting out their vision for the country. Tom Tugendhat had the mixed blessing of going first. The benefit of this was that it allowed him to deliver a series of gags about Labour donor Lord Alli which still sounded somewhat fresh. But it meant too that his speech was something of a warm-up act, delivering feel-good lines to an audience that was still filtering in throughout the first few minutes.

The first half of Tugendhat’s speech was somewhat pedestrian. He spoke of an optimism at the conference and the need to take the fight to Labour. Keir Starmer, he said, was guilty of leading the ‘most vindictive and venal administration in decades.’ The audience politely applauded but it felt stilted, rather than enthusiastic.