Young will be at the heart of the Tories’ thinking

PM WILL PITCH TO YOUTH AT ANNUAL CONFERENCE

CONSERVATIVES need to find a way to appeal to young people, Prime Minister Theresa May has admitted.

This will be one of themes of the Conservative conference in Manchester this week.

In a pre-conference interview, Mrs May said: “I think there is a generation out there who feel they’re going to be worse off than their parents.

“What we want as Conservatives

FLORENCE, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 22: British Prime Minister Theresa May gives her landmark Brexit speech in Complesso Santa Maria Novella on September 22, 2017 in Florence, Italy. She outlined the UK’s proposals to the EU in an attempt to break a deadlock ahead of the fourth round of negotiations that begin on Monday. is that people should be able to see a brighter future for their children.”

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s success in appealing to younger voters is seen as one of the reasons the Tories lost their majority in June’s General Election while Labour gained 30 seats.

Here we look at what to expect from the Tory conference, which runs from October 1-4.

Conference to become a leadership contest

The Conservatives are still in power - but the conference will be something of a post-mortem as Tory MPs and activists try to figure out what went wrong.

The question of the party leadership will be on everyone’s minds.

It’s widely assumed Theresa May will stand down at some point before the next election, perhaps shortly after Brexit takes place in March 2019.

Conservatives will naturally be thinking about what happens after that. It means speeches by potential leadership candidates such as Home Secretary Amber Rudd, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson or Brexit Secretary David Davis will be watched particularly closely.