Boris Johnson heads to Manchester tomorrow for the first in-person Tory conference for two years.
Delegates and MPs will descend on the Grade II-listed, four-star Midland hotel in the city centre, which boasts “sumptuous bedrooms” and an “idyllic spa”.
The Prime Minister finally gets to toast his December 2019 landslide victory with the party faithful. But the time for celebration and luxury is long past.
Instead, the conference will be overshadowed by the looming gas price-fuelled cost-of-living crisis, petrol shortages and fears of empty supermarket shelves in the run-up to Christmas – dubbed the “EFFing” crisis in government, standing for “energy, food and fuel”.
There are also worries of a potential spike in coronavirus cases as temperatures plummet and people spend more time indoors.
The fragile coalition Johnson stitched together is just that: fragile.
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Daily Mirror)
Labour is striving for power after the Red Wall switched to the Tories, say many MPs, because voters hated Jeremy Corbyn and wanted to ‘Get Brexit Done’.
And in the South, Lib Dems claim they are well positioned to exploit Tory supporters’ frustrations at the PM trying to maintain his appeal to Northern voters.
Meanwhile the Conservatives are notoriously ruthless and disloyal – if they believe they would be better off with Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss, few would hesitate to dump Johnson.
The past two years have been a rollercoaster for the PM.
Since the party’s last conference in October 2019, also in Manchester, he has won that huge election victory, Got Brexit Done, divorced his second wife, married his third, had a sixth child and is expecting a seventh, almost…