TORY BEAUTY PAGEANT WAS CANCELLED THIS YEAR

TO DISAPPOINTMENT all round, the annual Tory beauty pageant was cancelled this year.

Traditionally, there is a parade of Cabinet ministers with an eye on future leadership possibilities doing their utmost to charm the party grassroots at Conservative conferences. In Birmingham this week though, there was barely a hint of political glamour on show.

Ministers were under orders to maintain a unified front in every speech from the platform in the city’s Symphony Hall. One ministerial aide told me how some spicy attacks on the anti-Brexit crowd were expunged from a Cabinet minister’s draft speech.

“We were told by Number 10 we could not have anything that might upset the Remain-voters in the Cabinet,” said the aide, adding: “The big red pen came out and cut all the best lines.”

One minister told me: “It’s been a boring week – we’ll call that ‘mission accomplished’.”

Boris Johnson’s speech to more than a thousand Tories was the one signal of a rival camp in defiant opposition to Theresa May. Yet even the former foreign secretary bellowing at her Brexit plans “chuck Chequers” did not overshadow the Prime Minister’s well-received speech.

“Boris has been stampeding into conference, causing mayhem, and stampeding out again for years,” said one ally of Mrs May, adding: “It was pretty much business as usual.”

Generally, Tory backbench plotters kept well away from Birmingham this week. After the conference ended, they were still insisting an attempt to oust the Prime Minister will come next year.

One told me: “May cannot take the party forward. She’ll be gone by April.” Without a designated champion, the plotters are struggling to persuade enough Tory MPs that a leadership challenge is needed. Mrs May’s loss of the Tory majority in last year’s general election remains her biggest flaw. But her position may look different if she achieves a Brexit deal against expectations and steers the country through a relatively smooth departure.

Tory plotters could find that the longer Mrs May stays in place, the harder she is to eject. They may have to wait for some time for the next Tory beauty contest to be held.