Three former Conservative Central Office hands, Patrick Kidd, Peter Franklin and Gavin Megaw, on what the Tories are doing each week, and whether it's working. Every episode ends with a verdict: up or down.
This week: the day before Andy Burnham faced Parliament for the first time as Prime Minister, Kemi Badenoch carried out her deepest reshuffle yet. Andrew Griffith is in as shadow chancellor, Tom Tugendhat back at foreign affairs, Priti Patel out and James Cleverly off to run for London mayor. Accident or ambush? And now Burnham has to work out how to handle a Labour party that broke his predecessor, with a bond market already deciding what it thinks. Plus whether Reform have peaked, the Clacton by-election, and why Peter thinks Kemi should be a bit nicer.
This week's recommendations from our trio: Tom Tugendhat's Telegraph piece on Chinese electric cars [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2026/09/01/rescue-europe-car-industry-made-in-china-folly-factories/], Rachel Morley's Church Crawling, and Nevil Shute's Trustee from the Toolroom.
