Theresa may

After a lacklustre conference and a disastrous speech, Theresa May's position within her party has never looked more fragile. But she can take heart that her relationship with the public is a different story entirely. In a sign that conference is only a headline event for politicos, it appears May's shaky performance in Manchester has meant diddly squat. An ICM poll claims the Tories have actually gained a point from the whole debacle. Even if you combine the three different polls done since the conference – they show a swing between the main parties of... zero. https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/917406487936491525 The findings will come as a blow to Parliamentary plotters such as Grant Shapps, who had hoped to use recent events to push May out.

The moment Philip May helped his wife from the stage after her conference speech, it became clear that it is only a matter of when, not if, her leadership of the Conservative Party and occupancy of No.10 comes to an end. What happens next? Who knows, but if you understand the rules, it is just possible a sequence of events has started which will ultimately lead to hundreds of thousands of people participating in a three month election process for a new leader. It might even result in a surprising outcome. In other words, a relatively unknown newer MP, such as Kemi Badenoch (Saffron Walden); or Bim Afolami (Hitchin and Harpenden); or Rishi Sunak (Richmond, Yorks), being chosen. In the short term, such a contest would mean more uncertainty. It would definitely be a risk.

Even loyal Cabinet Minister admit that the Tories can’t go on like this for another 18 months. As I say in The Sun this morning, Theresa May needs to show that the situation is going to improve. I think there are three things that May needs to do. First, she needs to show that she is enjoying the job. Tory MPs are, genuinely, beginning to worry that May’s sense of duty is such that she’ll stay on even if she is being crushed by the burdens of office. Now, those who work for the Prime Minister in Number 10 are adamant that she is relishing the job and wants to stay. But she needs to demonstrate that publicly. Second, May needs a more radical domestic agenda. Even if her speech hadn’t been hit by those three disasters, it would have been inadequate to the moment.

There are many ways to make a conference speech memorable and Theresa May managed most of them. A prankster with a P45, a constant cough and a set that fell to bits as she spoke, the speech was a riot of metaphors in waiting. It may yet be pointed to as a decisive moment in her premiership but it was certainly notable. The only forgettable aspect was the content. When Mrs May tries to inject passion into her voice it is not just the frog that catches in her throat. It is her conservatism. Conservative politician can ascend to the rhetorical heights at time of peril. Winston Churchill, was, as David Cannadine once wrote, both a master and a slave of the English language. In his early years, Churchill had an unenviable reputation for lavish verbosity.

In her speech today at Conservative party conference, Theresa May announced a draft bill that would give Ofgem full power to impose a widespread energy price cap. Here's what Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com and cheapenergyclub.com has to say about her proposals.  It’s a national disgrace that a struggling 90 year-old granny pays substantially more to boil a kettle than an affluent web-savvy man like me. However a price cap done wrong can do more harm than good. Some in the Tories have called for a ‘relative’ price cap – which means a firm's most expensive price can only be a set percentage more than the cheapest. That’s self-defeating – it means they’ll just withdraw cheap deals.