This may be the final round of party conferences before Rishi Sunak calls a general election. In 2014, the Conservatives held a confident, cocky conference and set themselves up to secure a majority the following year. This year’s conference has not been that. Conference regulars were startled to see large parts of the exhibition hall utilised as meeting areas or simply sealed off. Those events that ran were well-attended, but there were far fewer than before. It had 2015 Liberal Democrat vibes, though without the defiance. If the mood was subdued, it’s partly because the party knows it is divided, and can’t yet work out how to build an election-winning coalition. Nigel Farage is closer to this party’s heart than David Gauke or, it seems, Conservative London Assembly member Andrew Boff.

No one knows for sure when the election will be, though everyone has an opinion. One argument is that it will be spring, because at that point there might be some data to show that Channel migration has dropped. They’d need to run before crossings rise again over the more clement summer months. A different argument is that it will need to be autumn, because by then recent rises in oil prices will have worked their way through the RPI formula.

This was the first truly post-Johnson conference. I heard his name mentioned twice, both by Robert Halfon, and both in an historical context (eg. ‘I spoke to the then prime minister, it was Boris’). There was a bit of boosterism in the remarks made by MPs at fringe meetings, but cakeism as a philosophy seems largely buried for now. A (possibly unexpected?) benefit of the will-they won’t-they over HS2 is that the majority of advocates for tax cuts recognise that there is no money available for them. On HS2, by the way, kudos to rail minister Huw Merriman, who handled a potentially difficult rail panel discussion very well: stonewalling unanswerable questions with some good humour with obvious enthusiasm for his brief and without, as far as I know, resorting to feeding conspiracy theories about meat taxes or 15 minute cities. Merriman is, I think, one to watch.

Back to Truss, as no one was saying, even if the queue for the former premier’s speech was truly spectacular. It snaked its way around the halls and stairs of the Midland Hotel. People were queuing as though for a spectacular roller-coaster, with the latest gravity-defying spins, and dips. And they are her people – she was the choice of the Tory grassroots over the current fella. But among the rest of Conference there was clear irritation at what they saw as Liz Truss’s unhelpful antics. Many Conservatives are deeply embarrassed about her brief time in office, which they feel destroyed their claims to economic credibility, and her subsequent lack of self-awareness. There was less annoyance about the clear leadership manoeuvres of Braverman and Badenoch.

Starmer is no Blair. If I had a large sum of money every time I heard that phrase we could fully fund HS2. It’s a really interesting phrase that has two very different meanings. The first is to buoy up Tory members. They don’t like Starmer and can’t believe that anyone could. The second is more outward focused. It’s an indirect message to members of the public and seeks to imply that Blair is the one Labour leader for whom it would be reasonable to to vote. Of course, the Blair comparison is in many ways false. He is not a candidate for prime minister. A truly confident Conservative party would say Starmer is no Sunak, but the most recent polling suggests that the Labour leader is in front of the PM on most issues. The more fearful Tory members worry that Starmer being no Corbyn will be enough to persuade former Labour voters to return to their previous fold. So prepare to hear more about Starmer and Blair in the months ahead.