James Heale and Tim Shipman

In his interview in this week’s magazine, Robert Jenrick claims one of the reasons he defected to Reform is that the Conservative party is aiming for a ‘60 seat strategy’ which will leave the Tories grubbing around for votes in the ‘posh’ parts of Southern England – and even then only in the seats where the Lib Dems aren’t hoovering up anti-Labour protest votes. Now, leaked accounts of the strategy circulating among Tory MPs have been passed to The Spectator detailing exactly how it would work. Three core groups of voters have been identified by the party’s strategists, led by Stephen Gilbert. These are described as ‘Potential Conservatives’, ‘persuasion voters’ and ‘tactical voters’.