October 1st 2023.
Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, will be speaking at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester over the next four days. He has vowed to set out his long-term vision without taking the 'easy' choices. This will be his first conference as leader and he will be addressing policies that have the potential to narrow the polls against the Labour rivals.
The party will be gathering later today for the opening of the conference. Members will face questions over the future of the HS2 rail project and calls from grandees for tax cuts. However, their enthusiasm was dampened when Richard Walker, the executive chairman of Iceland supermarket, quit the party on the eve of the conference.
Mr Walker told BBC News: ‘It has become clear to me over recent months that the Conservative Party is drifting out of touch with the needs of business, with the environment and also the everyday people that my business touches and serves.’
Rishi Sunak, who arrived in the North West with his wife Akshata Murty on Saturday afternoon, tweeted: ‘After nearly a year as Prime Minister, I’ve learnt that the political system incentivises the easy decision, not always the right one. At Conservative Party conference this week, we’ll show that can change. And we’ll do it by taking long-term decisions for a brighter future.’
The Prime Minister has announced a £1 billion fund to help regenerate towns across the UK. Some of the places being awarded the funding are part of the so-called Red Wall - constituencies in Labour’s traditional heartlands of the North of England and the Midlands that Boris Johnson won for the Tories during his landslide election victory in 2019.
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said the 55 towns had been selected based on deprivation measures and other factors. Mr Sunak is also likely to face questions about the future of HS2 during the conference.
Theresa May, Boris Johnson and David Cameron have already urged him not to scale back the major transport project. Liz Truss, his direct predecessor, is expected to use a speech at a rally on the fringes of the conference on Monday to call for corporation tax to be cut to 19% to drive economic growth.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman used a newspaper interview to criticise celebrities who spoke out against her speech on migration, made in the United States last week. She said celebrity critics were ‘out-of-touch pampered elites’ who were ‘virtue-signalling’. Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch backed the remarks in comments made to The Sunday Times, adding that leaving the ECHR is ‘definitely something that needs to be on the table’.
Speakers at the Tory conference on Sunday include Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, Defence Secretary Grant Shapps and party chairman Greg Hands. All eyes will be on the Prime Minister to see how his long-term vision for the country will take shape.
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