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Daily Telegraph
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EDITOR'S PICK
Good morning from the Editor-in-Chief, William Cash
LET’S GET THE PARTY STARTED
If it’s mid-March then it’s time to start thinking about autumn party conference season.
Hit for six. Only this year, with the Green Party and Reform UK torching the two-party system, public affairs teams are faced with the prospect of having to potentially attend up to six conferences – if you include Plaid Cymru – over a gruelling two months. The season kicks off on 5-6 September with Reform UK back at the NEC in Birmingham for the third year running.
Nice problem to have. I hear the Greens are in a pickle because they’ve been forced to look for a new conference location due to surging membership numbers. Last year’s gathering at Bournemouth International Centre was a squeeze with capacity for 3,000 members. Since Hannah Spencer’s Gorton and Denton byelection win, Green Party membership – it costs £6 to join – has risen by 15,000 a week to over 220,000. The party is snapping at the heels of Reform in the polls and size of membership. Nigel Farage has taken issue with the latest Sky/YouGov poll – we reported on the spat last week.
ZACK TO THE FUTURE
Opposites attract. What’s interesting about the rise in Green support is how, despite clashing with Reform UK on almost every issue and with both leaders at opposite ends of the cultural spectrum – Zack Polanski is gay, vegan and Jewish, while Farage, er, isn’t and is a regular at Boisdale, famed for its Scottish beef – the Greens look to be taking a few leaves out of Reform’s disruptor strategy playbook.
Sea it ain’t so. If the two-party system is no longer fit for purpose, nor is the old conference model where parties often gravitated to faded Victorian seaside towns, from Blackpool to Margate. Don’t be surprised to see Polanski ditch the promenade for the city – as Reform and the Tories have – in a move popular with younger urban voters.
Teenage riot. The Sky/YouGov poll makes the Greens the most popular party with voters under 50, and a remarkable 49 per cent of 18-24 year olds say they back the Greens, which must be scaring Labour who are looking to lower the voting age to 16. A recent Cavendish research paper, Green Gains, goes deep on the reasons for the rise of the anti-establishment Polanski, which Oliver Dean analysed for us.
IF YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM…
That the Greens are actively aping the disruptor strategy of Reform was made clear at a party panel discussion in October, chaired by the party’s CEO Harriet Lamb, called “How to beat Reform”. There’s an amateur video of it online with fuzzy audio. The takeaway is that the way Reform have seized the narrative by “flooding the zone” and talking up the immigration agenda can be equally applied by the Greens in other policy areas that appeal to younger voters – “tax the rich” and getting rid of billionaires being one of them.
LOOK WHO’S STALKING
But could this political stalking act go too far? Rumour has it Polanski is looking for a new London HQ and his team are eyeing-up space on another floor in the same Millbank Towers building in Westminster as Reform UK. “We’ve seen groups of very ‘non-corporate’ types coming into the building,” says a Millbank Towers source. “The Green Alliance is already on the 18th floor, so it would be a natural fit.”
Eye-watering-rent. Large team office space in Millbank Towers – owned by the uber-wealthy Reuben brothers - has been listed at between £58,000 to £72,000 a month. For an anti-billionaire party preaching about the “wealth divide”, moving in could come at a serious political cost. Watch this space.
LOCAL ELECTIONS, NATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
Our Westminster columnist Pepys expects the 7 May local and Welsh elections to make the Battle of the Boyne look like a Wind in the Willows picnic. We are in uncharted political territory. Nobody doubts this will be a day of reckoning for both Labour and the Tories. And with a ‘Green wave’ expected, can Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch survive as leaders?
A mean roast. In his column, Pepys sets out why they both probably will, or at least have a prolonged stay of execution. After the 2025 party conference season, Starmer and Badenoch both bought political time after seeing off challenges from rivals with stirring speeches and smart policy ideas (abolishing stamp duty went viral). In Manchester, Robert Jenrick was a Brutus-like presence, biding his time with fringe talk of making a mean Sunday roast and taking up boxing.
Party fears. Now Jenrick has defected to Reform, the chances of a coup against Badenoch are slim, however bloody the results on 7 May. The reason is not so much because Kemi has upped her game at PMQs, improved the polling and united the party with some tough talk. Rather, it’s expediency. As a former spad to a Tory Cabinet minister told us: “The truth is that, as with Starmer, no serious challenger MP actually wants to be leader after the expected Labour and Tory massacre. Or to pick up the pieces. Seizing the crown will come later.”
SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND
The teal deal. Last year’s two-day ‘mini-break’ schedule at the NEC – with a Heathrow Business Lounge - seemed to go down well last year with Reform’s corporate delegates. A drinks knees-up for public affairs types at Reform HQ earlier this month, hosted by the party’s head of external affairs Matthew Allen-Mackinnon, Robert Jenrick announced that the party would be hosting its first Reform Business Day on Thursday 3 September – with a corporate VIP courtship dinner in the evening.
New Westminster Waltz: our latest magazine cover story by Bradshaw Advisory lobbyist Gawain Towler, asks whether British Business is ready to dance with Reform.
Drill, baby, drill. Given that Richard Tice has promised to axe net zero contracts for offshore wind and called the UK’s natural resources a “source of treasure” in his first speech as “shadow” business and energy spokesman in Dudley, the Millbank gathering included several public affairs leaders from the off-shore industry, including Andrew Mennear, senior director of government affairs at BP and trade bodies representing oil and gas industries.
Bad-boy energy. Jenrick went on to say – this was before the Iran war saw oil prices skyrocket in the UK – that the energy plans Reform are working on will be a “totally different energy policy” than those of recent years.
Midas touch. To make his point he then joked to the packed room: “I don't know if anybody in this room represent renewable clients, but you're all toast” (or a word to that effect). “Everybody else? You’re going to be rich, prosperous and successful in the years ahead.”
Iran fallout. On Saturday, I went to my local farm supply shop to find that the kerosene we use for a generator had risen from £28 for a 25-litre fuel box to over £50. It may be mid-March but it was back to wearing ski clothes at the weekend at home in Shropshire.
Mugged off. As the in-house and agency guests stumbled out of the Reform party at Millbank Towers – the fizz had flowed for hours – we were given white mugs emblazoned with Farage grinning outside Number 10. A pack of Nurofen would have been more useful.
EVERY BOOZER WINS
The big question of course is which conferences will the popular Politico Pub turn up at this season, ostensibly “to serve insight, debate and a well-earned drink”. Last year, this Tardis-like drinking den and interview salon only made it to Liverpool for the Labour conference and Manchester for the Tories. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Tardis land in Birmingham with the Women in Public Affairs executive team jumping out and ordering a round of spritzers – the WIPA were noticeably absent from the NEC last year.
I had forgotten how much boozing goes on during conference season. When I suggested to a member of The Mace’s 'Any Questions?' panel in Birmingham last September that we might make our fringe event a breakfast briefing on the Saturday, there was silence down the phone. 'Not sure that's a good idea', the conference veteran said.
The Count: This was confirmed when Politico published their stats on 'the amount of booze got through’ in their mobile drinking den over the month. At Labour’s conference the tally was: 446 glasses of wine, 10 bottles of spirits, and 245 cans of soft drinks. At the Tory conference: 410 glasses of wine, 58 bottles of spirits, and 362 tonics or soda water.
I’ll be back: That Labour won the battle of the wine glasses by 36 shows how far the Labour movement has come since the days of 'beer and sandwiches' meetings with Harold Wilson and the Trade Unions in Downing Street. Now conference parties are more likely to feature designer cocktails and late-night karaoke, such as the raucous evening hosted by the Betting & Gaming Council at the Grosvenor Casino, Liverpool, during Labour’s conference. Memo to Heather Vernon of Woburn Partners: keep me on the list.
LORD A-LEAPIN
The Conservatives are also returning to Birmingham in 2026 on 4-7 October – at the ICC, not the NEC. I love Toby Young’s House of Lords diary in the latest issue of The Mace in which the freedom of speech campaigner reflects on his political status ‘upgrade’ from lowly hack to in-demand peer at last year’s Tory conference in Manchester.
Young was asked to do two events on the main stage, which was a first, although not altogether flattering. The Times sketch writer noted there were only three people in the audience when Young addressed the party faithful on Sunday and reminded readers that he had once written a book called The Sound of No Hands Clapping.
Cross bench: Young went on to explain how, as a newly minted peer, it had been painfully difficult to learn the arcane rules of the House. Shortly after he arrived in the Lords, he walked into the chamber, remembered to bow to the throne, then spotted a baroness he recognised and made his way towards her. “After I’d sat down next to her, I got a text from the Earl of Effingham: ‘Lord Young, on the basis you have taken the Conservative whip, may I please suggest that you sit on the Conservative benches?’” Young had sat next to a Labour peer – humiliated, he swiftly crossed the floor.
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With Revolut just launching its UK bank, we speak to Rory Tanner, Head of Government Affairs at the $75 billion disrupter fintech.
The Strategist: The Tech Political Guru
Damian Collins is a former MP who leads public policy at law firm Geradin Partners. As an MP, he served as tech minister and chair of the DCMS Select Committee, leading high-profile inquiries into social media disinformation and the impact of addictive technologies. Read his latest Digital Confidential column for The Mace.
The Mace Cabinet Profile
Meet the Rt Hon Darren Jones MP, Starmer’s Mr Fixer-in-Chief, and No 10 delivery man of the Mandelson Papers.
What policy keeps you up at night?
With ‘English Tourism Week’ lasting until 23rd March, we asked Ben Spier - Head of Regulation and Policy at Forge Holidays and Director at the Professional Association of Self-Caterers.
“The cumulative impact on tourism sector of increasing taxation and regulation being at odds with the government's ambition for growth. Tourism provides accessible, flexible and meritocratic jobs often in areas with few other economic drivers, perfect for lowering the welfare burden. However, policy in Westminster, Cardiff and Edinburgh is actively eroding the conditions tourism SMEs need to start up and thrive. ”
Read Ben Edgar-Spier’s ‘Leader in UK Public Affairs’ Westminster Index profile here.
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Credits: copy editor Piers Martin, digital editor Oliver Dean, associate publisher Wendy Coumantaros, captain of IT Dan Colburn Smith, designer Cath Mackenzie, managing editor Emeila Wild and editorial assistant Madeline Dabbah.
