When the Tories need to rely on Ed Davey’s school of gimmickry, you know Kemi Badenoch has a problem

Good news for the Tories attending this year’s party conference in Birmingham is that they can get served at the Hyatt bar in less than two minutes.

And the bad news for the Tories attending this year’s party conference... is that they can get served at the Hyatt bar in less than two minutes.

The enormous International Conference Centre (ICC) in the city’s Broad Street is vast and clearly designed for much larger events than the 2026 Tory conference. And its cavernous spaces only serve to highlight the lack of people attending this year’s jamboree.

When this party was in Brum during its time in government, the same bar was packed. It would take half an hour – or more – to get a drink and the press of people would overflow outside.

While those who have made the journey this year are relatively chipper, it is clear that many others couldn’t be bothered. Many more have switched their attention elsewhere – maybe to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK or Andy Burnham’s Labour.

The lack of interest was rather brutally highlighted by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg who decided it was not worthwhile doing her flagship Sunday morning politics show live from the conference.

She had to insist on a pre-recorded interview with Kemi Badenoch to save the Tory leader’s blushes.

Then, surprise guest Jeremy Clarkson cuttingly joked from the main stage to a thin crowd that delegates seemed to have “come dressed as seats”.

And the truth is that, while Ms Badenoch is coming into the conference full of confidence in herself and secure in her job as party leader (now that Robert Jenrick has defected), she and her team are having to rely on a series of gimmicks to even get noticed outside.

It is almost as if they have gone to the Ed Davey school of politics. The Lib Dem leader has tried to raise wider interest in his party with stunts, usually involving falling into water.

Ms Badenoch has not yet jumped into a Birmingham canal (and, yes, Birmingham has more than Venice) but her party has not been short on gimmicks – whether it is unveiling vaguely costed plans for a British “iron dome” (which she almost instantly denied) or handing out bags of merch taking the mickey out of Mr Burnham and Keir Starmer.

The merch has landed them in trouble with Stanley Chow, the artist who came up with Mr Burnham’s campaign cartoon likeness, for alleged breach of copyright. But at least that gave the party a bit more publicity.

The so-called Birmingham Tapestry – the 88ft remake of the Bayeux Tapestry – is the cleverest of these gimmicks. It even includes the faces of 14 journalists to ensure they all talk about it. But it has a dual purpose. The space it takes up in the exhibition area rather neatly masks the fact that hardly any exhibitors are in there.

A lack of attendees and exhibitors is bad news for an event which is supposed to raise money for a party that might have to fight a general election next year. But, then again, not many of the party’s traditional donors have turned up either.

Lord Ashcroft can be seen around but not many others, with a number looking at Reform instead or just keeping their hands in their pockets.

One shadow minister asked The Independent: “Have you any idea how this conference is playing to the outside world? It feels like we are chipper here – but I don’t know if that is coming through.”

Well, the painful answer is that it is not playing in the outside world. Because, as with the Lib Dems, voters are struggling to care about a party that is consistently third in the polls and is still five points lower than when Ms Badenoch became leader.

They can announce iron domes, tax cuts, scrapping Natural England and all the rest – but unless voters believe the party has a realistic prospect for government, none of it matters.

When the Tory members struggle to take much interest in their own party, then why should the wider public?

They do have one asset in the leader. Ms Badenoch is recognisable and liked by the public. She goes from event to event with an air of surety and charisma. Nobody wishes Mr Jenrick had stayed in the party and taken over.

But the harsh lesson of this week is that Ms Badenoch is not enough. The Tory brand is still busted from 14 years of government, Brexit, a badly-handled pandemic, crashing the bond market under Liz Truss and a lack of recognisable figures in the shadow cabinet.

The YouGov poll in the middle of conference rather illustrated the problem. Labour are up three points to 27 per cent five points, ahead of Reform who are down three to 22 per cent. The Tories are up one point but still in third on just 20 per cent.

In the Birmingham tapestry, it is the taxpayers who end up getting an arrow in the eye like the ill-fated Harold Godwinson in the original. But the Conservative Party feels like a defeated army without the appetite for a fight, even as a potential early election beckons.