Leaderof the Conservative Party Kemi Badenoch delivering her speech on the final dayof conference © SOPA Images Limited / Alamy Stock Photo
It was Kemi Badenoch’s turn to take centre stage this week, as the Conservatives held their annual party conference in Birmingham. She kicked things off with a 96-page document, The Right Way, outlining the principles that would guide the next Conservative Government and arguing that Government “has taken responsibility for too much and forgotten how to deliver”. At the Conference itself, the Tories linked welfare and defence, arguing – in a nod to the PM’s comments at PMQs – that there could be no social security without national security (do you see what they did there). The headline announcement was Britannia Shield, a £10bn missile and drone defence system to protect critical national infrastructure and military bases from overseas attacks. To fund it and help get some of the 1 million NEETs into work, the Conservatives proposed halving Employer National Insurance for 21–24-year-olds, overhauling the fit note system, and introducing a ‘Get to Work’ programme that would replace Universal Credit for under-25s without six months of continuous employment with employment support and a new allowance. The party also pledged to build 50,000 additional prison places, funded by redirecting overseas aid spending and cutting the DCMS budget.
Closer to home (literally), Badenoch pledged to abolish inheritance tax on the family home and raise the individual threshold for other assets from £325,000 to £500,000, allowing couples to pass their main home to direct descendants tax-free. The Conservatives would also scrap the ‘Family Homes Tax’: Labour’s High Value Council Tax Surcharge, due to apply to owners of homes in England worth £2m or more from April 2028. Deregulation seems to be key to getting people into homes, with the party claiming that cutting red tape and scrapping net zero building rules could reduce new-build prices by up to £50,000. Its wider plans include leaving the Aarhus Convention and removing the associated caps on legal costs in environmental judicial reviews; abolishing Natural England and the Environment Agency; and replacing Section 106 agreements and the Community Infrastructure Levy with a single ‘one-stop’ Infrastructure Levy.
On the cost of living, the party pledged to scrap the packaging charges it calls the ‘Grocery Tax’ and remove the £100,000 individual income threshold at which working parents lose access to funded childcare and Tax-Free Childcare. Education brought a seven-point ‘Pledge to Parents’ aimed at enforcing political impartiality in schools, alongside a separate commitment to restrict student loans for foreign nationals. On transport, the Conservatives reaffirmed support for Heathrow’s third runway, proposed a review of airport drop-off charges and set out measures to address workforce shortages. They also turned their attention to… floating bus stops, pledging to ban new ones and remove around 100 of the most dangerous.
6% – average five-year mortgage rate, rising to this level for the first time in three years.
39,500 tonnes – volume of waste cleared from a large illegal dump in Hoad’s Wood, Kent.
£10bn – amount the Conservatives say they would dedicate to building a new ‘Britannia Shield’ air defence network if they returned to power.
84% – proportion of young people polled who said they supported the Government’s plans to introduce vocational GCSE options for 14-year-olds.
66 minutes – length of Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s closing speech at her party’s conference in Birmingham.
8 – number of new Robotics Adoption Hubs to be supported across the country with £40m of Government funding.
£6.5bn – amount invested into key sectors identified under the Industrial Strategy between July and September 2026, according to the Government’s quarterly update.
22.6% – proportion of people aged 16-64 who meet the criteria for a common mental disorder, according to the findings of the Independent Review into mental health conditions, ADHD and autism.
Between the 2025 and 2026 local elections Reform UK was the most successful party in council by-elections by almost any metric. It averaged 29% of the vote in contests it fought against both Labour and the Conservatives, and won 37% of the seats.
Since May, that bonus has gone. Reform's average vote share has slipped 4 points to 25%, but its share of seats won has fallen by 15 points, to 22%. For the first time in over a year, it is winning fewer seats than its vote share would suggest.
The voting system is beginning to harm the party again. There is a tipping point for Reform around 25% of the vote. Above it, each extra point of vote share has been worth more than two points of seats. At 28%, Reform could expect more than a third of the seats on offer.
On the flip side, each point of vote share Reform loses just under 25% costs it around two and a half points of seats. Slip from 25% to 20% and its expected share of seats falls from more than a quarter to just one in six.
But the maths doesn't explain everything. Based on its pre-May performance, a party averaging 25% should have won around 31 of the 111 by-elections Reform has fought since. It has won just 24. That’s not a huge sample, but the gap is consistent with growing anti-Reform tactical voting.
None of this makes Reform a spent force. A quarter of the vote is still a formidable base, and it is still winning more than one contest in five. But the easy wins of last year are gone. To get back to the results it was achieving twelve months ago, Reform will need to win back the voters it has lost and beat opponents who are increasingly happy to lend each other their votes to stop it.
The Prime Minister flew to Berlin for his first in-person meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz at the UK-Germany Regional Growth Forum, where they discussed hybrid threats from Russia, the conflict in Ukraine, illegal migration, Germany’s potential entry into the Global Combat Air Programme and closer UK-EU ties.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband arrived in Ukraine for his first visit in the role, just as a brutal series of Russian strikes killed 78 people across the country. He joined President Zelenskyy and Foreign Minister Sybiha for a visit to the site of a recent strike in the Chernihiv region, which killed 22 people, and declared that Russia would “remain a pariah” for as long as it carried out such attacks.
Defence Secretary Wes Streeting attended a meeting of Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) defence ministers in Iceland. The JEF is a northern European military partnership comprising the UK, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Also on the norther front, Foreign Minister Uma Kumaran met with her Norwegian counterpart to discuss security in the Arctic and the impact of climate change. Later in the week, Streeting also hosted NATO’s European commander in London.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan met with mayors from across Europe at the Bloomberg LSE European City Leadership Initiative to discuss tackling shared urban challenges.
Trade Minister Lord Sarwar met with President Tokayev of Kazakhstan to discuss the (somewhat surprising) bilateral trade relationship worth £1.6bn.
Middle East Minister Stephen Doughty met with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar in Islamabad to discuss a range of issues including ‘regional and international developments’ after Pakistan this week announced the deployment of troops to Saudi Arabia following repeated attacks by the Houthis in Yemen.
International Development Minister Kirsty McNeill attended the EU Foreign Affairs Council on Development in Dublin, where she gave a speech on the importance of international cooperation for development.
Sagal Abdi-Wali will soon move into the green benches in Westminster, having succeeded in her bid to become the MP for Holborn and St Pancras.
Charlie Maynard has resigned as the Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson, apparently in a bid to trigger a leadership contest against Ed Davey. Check in this time next week to see how that’s getting on…
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government announced that Sergio Cavalaro has been appointed its Chief Construction and Scientific Adviser for a three-year term. Building on this (get it), the Government Property Agency announced that Dominic Arthur has joined as a non-executive director, appointed until July 2029.
Iain Coucher was reappointed as Chair of Ofwat, marking his second term in the role. His appointment will run until the establishment of a new water regulator, or 30 June 2029 at the latest.
The UK Health Security Agency announced Dr Gail Carson as its new Chief Medical Advisor and Professor Robin May as its permanent Chief Scientific Officer. May has been in the role in an interim capacity since September 2025.
The Judicial Appointments Commission appointed Justice Sarah Morgan as a Judicial Commissioner for a three-year period that began on 1 October.
Dr Jessica Harrison-Hall has been appointed to DCMS’s Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest for a four-year term.
Labour won the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, with Camden Council Leader Sagal Abdi-Wali securing 12,292 votes (45%) compared to the Greens’ 8,928 votes. Following the result, Abdi-Wali cited homelessness and opportunities for young people as her priorities, while Zack Polanski confirmed that he will stay on as leader of the Green Party.
The Green Party Conference took place in Brighton last weekend, and it was not without controversy as members voted 1,022 to 813 to pass a motion formally declaring that ‘Zionism is racism’. Party Leader Zack Polanski did not vote and has since said he would not support the motion in its current form. He has been banned from entering Israel as a result, however, and the motion was slammed across the political spectrum, with some Lib Dem MPs posting barely veiled invitations to Green MPs opposed to Polanski’s leadership to quit the party and join them.
Also at Green Party Conference, members voted to end the party’s opposition to nuclear power, dropping a commitment to phase out the technology in a major shift in its energy policy. The motion removes a ‘blanket opposition to nuclear fission’ and instead commits the Greens to assessing nuclear projects alongside other low-carbon technologies.
Plaid Cymru had its conference in Llandudno last week, where First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth told members in his keynote speech that the Welsh Government had a “clear mandate” for devolving more powers from Westminster. He formally demanded a "new deal" from the PM, requesting the transfer of powers over policing, justice, rail, and the Crown Estate to Cardiff to put Wales on an equal footing with Scotland.
Following the Prime Minister’s visit to Berlin to meet German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for the first UK-Germany Regional Growth Forum, the two countries agreed to launch their first Industrial Tech Corridor to boost investment, business partnerships and high-skilled jobs. Backed by major German firms including Siemens, Bosch and Allianz, the initiative will support collaboration on AI and other emerging technologies, alongside €20m in joint funding for quantum research.
The Government scrapped plans to curtail jury trials and instead unveiled wider measures to tackle the record backlog of court cases through investment in court technology, greater sentencing powers for magistrates and changes to how cases are allocated. The Justice Secretary is now left with the unenviable job of explaining why suspending a cornerstone of the British legal system was pursued when such mundane options were apparently a solution… although Keir Starmer’s departure from the Commons will make it easier to lay the mess at his door.
An official review in England has warned of a risk of over-diagnosis of ADHD and autism. Autism diagnoses among young people have risen sharply between 2000 and 2025, with the biggest increase among children aged six to 11. Last year, 4.6% of children in this age group had an autism diagnosis, up from just 0.2% in 2000. Among 12- to 17-year-olds, the figure rose from 0.1% to 4.1% over the same period. However, the review also highlighted a “very real, substantial rise in mental ill-health”, particularly among young people.
In response to the review, the Government has committed to a major overhaul of mental health support in the forthcoming Mental Health Strategy, pledging to move towards earlier, needs-led support for children, young people and adults, without long waits for clinical diagnosis. Greater support will be available in schools, colleges and communities with a focus on earlier intervention, reducing long waits and ensuring support is available before and without a diagnosis.
Awaab’s Law could be extended to private renters and other vulnerable households under a new consultation, potentially bringing around nine million additional homes under stricter repair deadlines for dangerous conditions such as damp and mould. The protections, which are already in place for social housing tenants, aim to ensure landlords act quickly to address serious hazards.
Reform UK did not break the law over the Channel 4 donations sting, according to… Reform UK. An internal investigation by the party has said they did not breach electoral law when senior officials were recorded by an undercover journalist discussing a potential way to secure foreign donations to the party. The Metropolitan Police is carrying out a separate criminal investigation into Reform UK over the allegations.
The UK joined other members of the G7 in agreeing to release strategic reserves of 100m barrels of oil due to the ongoing and ‘unprecedented’ volatility in the market. The joint statement also pledged to ‘refrain from export restrictions on energy and energy products between G7 countries’, following President Trump’s threats to cease diesel exports in an attempt to rescue domestic American pump prices ahead of the midterm elections.
The UK’s consulate in Jerusalem will not close following discussions with the Israeli government, despite declining relations. The Government insisted that Israel did not have the right to close the building due to its view that East Jerusalem is occupied territory, and the site will now be known as the UK Mission, Jerusalem.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called an early election for 29 November after parliament rejected his proposals to protect tenants amid the country’s housing crisis. The move follows nationwide protests over rising rents and comes as Sánchez faces mounting pressure over corruption scandals and wider cost-of-living concerns.
Ahead of Parliament’s return from Conference Recess on Monday, the Science and Technology Committee launched an inquiry into technology-facilitated abuse, which will explore how digital technologies can facilitate stalking, harassment, coercive control and non-consensual intimate image abuse, and how tech companies and the Government are responding.
Conservative Party Chairman Kevin Hollinrake saw an opportunity for a morning pint and seized it, using his conference speech at 10:30am to have a beer, or as he termed it a “far right fantasy pint” before bringing out his “far right fantasy black lab” (who just like Navigate’s Chief Morale Officer, seemed to refuse to sit on command). It comes after Nature Minister Jenny Riddell-Carpenter told Labour Conference that country pubs with warm beer and back labs were a “far right nostalgic vision of Britain”. And talking of farming, Jeremy Clarkson made a surprise appearance at Tory Conference too where he quipped that “a lot of people have come dressed as seats… around the edges.”
Andrew Griffith made headlines for his speech at Conference, although more so for the rather awkward ending, that left the audience unaware his speech had ended until he had left the stage (cue a rather delayed and standing ovation).
And finally at Conference, James Cleverly laid out his stall for the London Mayor candidacy at the LGBT Tories event – telling his audience (try not to cringe): “I’ve outed myself. I've been an MP in Essex, and I'm now able to truly be myself and say that I'm a passionate Londoner” and “I want London to be a top city, not at the bottom.” H/t the Times’ Aubrey Allegretti
