Katy Balls Katy Balls

‘I don’t think they can win’: Tories mull electoral doom

(Credit: Getty images)

Conservative party conference in Birmingham has got off to a strange start. MPs and activists aren’t in open revolt but few have much that is positive to say about the situation the Tory government finds itself in. As one long-time activist put it to me on arrival: 

‘I have been voting for the Conservatives for over two decades but now I’m not sure I can’

With a string of polls suggesting that the party would face electoral annihilation were an election held tomorrow, Liz Truss’s honeymoon is well and truly over. One particularly downbeat fringe event took place this afternoon, titled: ‘Can the Tories win the next election?’

Given a YouGov poll last week gave Labour a 33-point-lead, the panel – which included pollster James Johnson, 2019 Tory manifesto co-author Rachel Wolf and US pollster Frank Luntz – weren’t exactly optimistic over the party’s chances. Johnson argued that prior to Kwasi Kwarteng’s not-so-mini Budget the Conservatives still had a decent chance of re-election.

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