The Tory cock-up that has given Keir Starmer a free ride this week

Even though HS2 had not been all that popular with those in the room, the voters had noted the all too on-the-nose symbolism of a project that was sold through its life on its benefits to the north being scrapped at Birmingham. 

Transport minister Mark Harper claiming that the list billed as real, concrete projects last week was now just a list of “examples” will do much to evaporate what little confidence in the party remains.

But the biggest mistake of the Conservative Party conference – and the one that will benefit Labour the most, absent a major own goal – is one that will be invisible to almost everyone, even those who followed politics closely. It’s also one that’s baffling even Conservative Party insiders. “I cannot believe we have let this happen,” one party candidate said this weekend.

The mistake is one that relies upon the political conventions of the UK – the ones that still remain, at least. One is that during a major party’s conference, the other major parties will not make their own announcements or rebut what is happening on-air at the other parties’ conference.

The other is that the governing party gets to go last. It’s here that we have had the huge break from the norm – Labour is very much the opposition, not the government, but is going last all the same. 

The reason is a fairly boring administrative one, on one level. Labour has signed a multi-year deal with its Liverpool venue to host its party conference, rather than moving it around from city to city each year. The issue was that the venue was not available for 2023 in the week that Labour ‘should’ have gone – so the party asked if it could change the usual order and go this week instead. Astonishingly, someone in the Conservative party appeared to have agreed and said “yes”.

This might seem like small beer, but it is an absolute gift to the opposition party, who gets to at least tacitly rebut any of the government’s conference ideas that they don’t like, and position their own accordingly. Instead of being left to wait for parliament to return to tackle Sunak’s new “long-term plans” for the nation, Starmer can – if he chooses – do it from the platform at conference.

Being in government means having a target on your back, for good reason – the policies of the governing party necessarily attract more scrutiny because they are the ones (in the short term at least) most likely to happen. 

Going last at conference is, in a sense, a way to level the conference playing field a little. By giving that away, the Conservatives have tipped what is a crucial conference season – likely the last one before a general election – Labour’s way, even before they opened their mouths

Perhaps realising his party’s error, Sunak next did what he usually does and compounded it while trying to fix it. Having mutually agreed to amend the conventions around conferences, Sunak outright and unilaterally broke them today, with some connivance from the producers of Jeremy Vine’s radio show. 

Sunak gave an interview to Vine and did a “meet the voters” event, both of which were rendered awkward by him having very little to say in the wake of conference last week, and made all the worse for him having no response to a voter who called out his behaviour in trying to ‘spoil’ Labour’s conference.

Yet again, Sunak has managed to give himself the worst of all worlds. It is a small thing, but a testament to his political luck and skill that, with a target already on his back, he’s drawn one on his front too, to help Labour out.

An election loss for Sunak starts to seem less like a defeat of a politician at the peak of their powers and more like a mercy killing.