Never has it been more evident that the Conservatives need a fresh start - Andrew Vine

He’s been peering over the shoulders of the Liberal Democrats and Labour throughout their conferences in the past weeks, and his presence is being strongly felt at the gathering of the Tory faithful.

Reform’s dominance in the opinion polls is the cause of the slight air of despondency on the part of the two Conservatives I chatted to.

They share a sense their party simply isn’t being listened to by the public, that it is being drowned out by Mr Farage’s talent for grabbing headlines and the government’s knack for blundering from one crisis to another.

Once upon a time, both would have been delighted by Labour’s erratic performance, confident that the electorate would swing back to the Conservatives, first in next spring’s council polls and then at a general election.

Not any more. However optimistic the rhetoric at their conference, they know that if an election was called tomorrow, the Conservatives could find themselves in third place behind Reform and Labour, or maybe even fourth if there is a surge of support for the Lib Dems.

That’s a frustration, especially since both embody the sort of mainstream Conservative politics that formerly gave their party its broad electoral appeal – a moderate, one-nation philosophy that encouraged people to work hard, didn’t tax them dry and stood up for traditional values.

Neither is confident about coming home from the conference inspired that their party has picked itself up after defeat and is ready to take the fight to Labour and Reform.

It remains to be seen what the wider electorate thinks and whether everything said over the past few days in Manchester produces any improvement in the Conservatives’ poll ratings.

One of the problems for Tories like them is that Nigel Farage isn’t the only spectre hovering over the party.

There are a couple of others, in the form of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, both of whom so spectacularly blew Conservative credibility, the one because of his unfitness for office and ambiguous relationship with the truth, the other because she became a byword for rank incompetence.

Rishi Sunak paid the electoral price for the woeful performance of his two predecessors, and the current Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, has an uphill task in making any headway with the public unless she completely repudiates the party’s last few dismal years in office.

Nothing less than a completely fresh start will gain the Conservatives a hearing once more, never mind convince people to vote for them, especially the young. Without it, the party risks looking like a relic from a bygone age.

The promise of a new beginning gained Labour a landslide and it’s essentially the same pledge that is winning Reform all its support.

Labour’s vision of change for the better isn’t turning out at all well for many people and most businesses, and is only likely to be tarnished further if voters and companies are walloped with more tax rises in next month’s budget.

And if there is any solace for Conservative members like those I know, it is in the government’s less than sure-footed performance. By the admission of several ministers, its first year in office has not gone well and that is good news for the Tories gathered in Manchester.

Difficult though it will be to turn the party’s fortunes around, there is scope to do so with a general election still four years away.

That allows plenty of time for the Conservatives to firmly consign the Johnson and Truss episodes to the past and develop a new narrative to persuade voters to give them another try, especially if the government continues to stumble along in the uncertain manner it has displayed so far.

Here in Yorkshire especially, there are still many solid Conservative strongholds where voters will not easily be convinced of Reform’s claims to have fast and workable answers to securing Britain’s borders. They may like what Mr Farage is saying, but whether they trust him to deliver is another matter altogether.

That question of trust is there to be exploited by the Conservatives as they seek to rebuild their own credibility and electoral support.