Chaos and Dysfunction: Scenes from what was quite possibly the last Conservative Party conference

One of the hallmarks of the Conservative Party conference in 2022 was that almost everybody who despised Liz Truss, still traumatised in the aftermath of her Autumn fiscal event, had the good decency to stay away.

Not Grant Shapps, of course. 

Shapps bought a new phone for the event - a Samsung Galaxy Fold 4, at the time retailing at around £1,700 - that he used to collate a spreadsheet consisting of the names of hundreds of MPs who had doubts surrounding Truss’ leadership. Within the first day of the conference alone he had reportedly amassed 6,000 “data points”, 237 individual conversations with MPs, and had attended 57 coffee meetings. 

The intention was to gather enough support to launch a full-scale revolt against Truss. Ultimately it materialised a bit later in the month with her resignation. 

This year was slightly less seditious for Shapps - in part due to the fact that when he gave his inaugural speech as defence secretary on Sunday, it was being delivered to a virtually empty room.