William Atkinson

As per J. M. Barrie, one either believes in fairies, or they don’t. I take a similar approach to Rory Stewart. To his legions of Rest is Politics listeners, the ex-Tory MP, bedroom-squatter, and Afghanistan-botherer is a sage – as right-wing a voice as their timid and tiny middle-class minds can handle, successfully neutralised by co-hosting with 45-minute enthusiast Alistair Campbell. But to me he is a charlatan: another over-educated Balliol boy with a far higher opinion of himself than his public record merits. The example of his Dominic Cummings comments is a case in point. He is a charlatan: another over-educated Balliol boy with a far higher opinion of himself than his public record merits For those unfamiliar, a Stewart rant from June last year about the former No.

Much like Alan Partridge, Kemi Badenoch hopes to have bounced back. After an unsure start to her first year as Tory leader – hopeless interviews and PMQs showings, and a local election shellacking – she now seems to be on a roll. Her two recent set piece speeches at conference and responding to the Budget were successes, her parliamentary performances have been more assured, and she can now get through an interview without declaring war on her ethnic enemies. The Conservatives are no longer spiralling towards fourth; her personal ratings have ticked up to the dizzying heights of -14. For the first time since Badenoch became leader, I feel a faint twig of optimism For those of us of a Kemi-sceptic disposition, this is quite distressing.

Like every Tory Boy, I had a Margaret Thatcher poster. I put it up when I was 15 and had just joined the party. Above my bed, resplendent in blue, the Iron Lady glowered down at my teddies. Naturally, it came down when I first brought home a girlfriend. For any young Tories lacking in Thatcher tat, this week’s Conservative party conference will provide plenty of opportunities for purchasing some. It (almost) coincides with the 100th anniversary of Thatcher’s birth on 13 October. The occasion has been heralded by a series of think-tank initiatives, dinners and conferences and the release of a one-volume edition of Charles Moore’s biography. The Iron Lady’s spectre looms as large as ever over this conference. Many of today’s Conservatives remain in hock to her.

Would a Reform government lift the ban on fracking? ‘Abso-bloody-lutely,’ is Nigel Farage's answer. Fracking and nuclear will form the core of Reform’s push for British energy self-sufficiency – a drive that will see the Net Zero target junked if the party wins power. The Reform leader made his remarks at ‘Net Zero: The New Brexit?’, a panel ebent in Westminster, put on by Heartland UK & Europe, a new cross-Atlantic offshoot of a prominent US think-tank. But while his punchiest view at the event was on the Iran-Israel war – ‘Let’s get rid of this bloody awful lot’ was his take on the Islamic Republic – the Reform leader clearly sees how the subject of energy can help his party to woo voters.

On Wednesday, The Spectator dispatched me to Dominic Cummings’s Pharos lecture in Oxford. Packed into the Sheldonian theatre was an interesting crowd. I spotted several X anons, my A-Level politics teacher and Brass Eye creator Chris Morris. For many in the audience, this was a rare opportunity to see their hero; for one or two hecklers, it was a unique chance to harrumph at the villain of Brexit, lockdown, and Barnard Castle. You can read a transcript of his lecture here. I’m a Cummings fan. Having first discovered him via our political editor’s books, I began reading his blog as a teen. I worked through the reading lists, defended his eye test in my student magazine, and heralded him as the future of the right in an article only last year.