7 wildest moments at Conservative Party conference 

BIRMINGHAM, England — Fresh from a landslide election defeat, the Conservatives have been in the mood to party.

After a resounding thumbs down from the public in July, Britain’s Tories are gathering in Birmingham for their annual conference — and aren’t exactly shying away from the headlines.

The Tories are in the process of picking a new leader, so the entire conference has been an extended beauty pageant, with four contenders jostling for attention.

POLITICO takes you through the top seven most memorable moments from this year’s bash.

Kemi Badenoch slams maternity pay, denies she slammed maternity pay

Leadership frontrunner Kemi Badenoch got some attention she didn’t go looking for when she questioned whether maternity pay in the U.K. was “excessive” — then decided to beef with the media about whether or not she’d actually said that in the first place.

Badenoch was asked directly by Times Radio on Sunday: “Do you think we’ve got the right level of maternity pay at the moment?”

Rather than a simple “yes,” Badenoch responded: “Maternity pay varies depending on who you work for, but it is a function — where it’s statutory maternity pay — a function of tax. Tax comes from people who are working. We’re taking from one group of people and giving to another. This in my view is excessive.”

Her fellow leadership contenders — in particular, top challenger Robert Jenrick — quickly seized on the comments and flaunted their own non-stop support for working mums. Badenoch was forced to clarify her arguments on X, saying “of course maternity pay isn’t excessive … no mother of three kids thinks that.”

Badenoch, no stranger to fights with the media, also opened up a new front — accusing Times Radio of interrupting her when she was in fact trying to make a very reasonable point about regulatory burdens on business.

Robert Jenrick takes on the SAS 

Unlike fellow leadership contenders Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick hasn’t served in the army. But that didn’t stop him doing battle with … Britain’s elite special forces.

In a slick campaign video, Jenrick claimed Britain’s special forces were “killing rather than capturing terrorists, because our lawyers tell us that if they’re caught, the European court will set them free.”

The idea was to hit on Jenrick’s core campaign theme of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights. But it ended up pitting Jenrick against military types.

Malcolm Chalmers, a national security expert at defense think tank RUSI, said soldiers could be “at risk” as a result of Jenrick’s “very dangerous” comments, which seemed… not ideal.

Tugendhat said the video demonstrates “a fundamental misunderstanding of military operations” while James Cleverly felt the need to explain “our military do not murder people.”

Jenrick defended his words Tuesday, telling the BBC he was only echoing the comments of ex-Defense Secretary Ben Wallace and claiming the ECHR’s love of human rights was “leading the decision-makers to take lethal action.” 

It wasn’t Jenrick’s only battle of conference. The bookmaker’s favorite for Tory leader also came under fire for donations from a firm which loaned money via the British Virgin Islands, a tax haven. Jenrick stressed that the donations were “perfectly legal and valid,” but it’s a headache he could have done without.

Tugend-tan, principled peppermints and the Jenrick Post

There’s no merch quite like Tory leadership merch.

The leadership contenders wooed members by giving away swag left, right and center. James Cleverly’s team handed out battery packs saying “power to our members” (see what they did there?) and water bottles emblazoned with “no leaks here.” Kemi Badenoch’s stand offered peppermints displaying her campaign principles and … some apples?

Robert Jenrick’s crew each had their own “we want Bobby J” baseball caps. A “Jenrick Post” newspaper will no doubt be flying off the shelves.

However, it was outsider Tom Tugendhat’s team who really went to town on the branding opportunities. Members could savor “Tugendtote bags,” “Tugendtats” (tattoos with the word Tom in a love heart) and even “Tugendtan” fake tan.

Discretion is advised before applying any of the products. 

Labour’s freebies row prompts loads of dad jokes

The Conservatives might love a good civil war, but they managed to sound like one big happy family taking potshots at Labour.

The leadership contenders seized on Labour’s bumpy start to government, in particular controversy around Keir Starmer accepting free glasses, clothing and the use of a penthouse from wealthy donor Lord Alli.

“The freebies are so good at this conference it’s only a matter of time before Keir Starmer arrives,” Robert Jenrick chortled.

“It’s not just us that can’t afford four more years of Labour. Lord Alli can’t afford four more years of Labour,” cried Tom Tugendhat. Boom boom.

Liz Truss remembers the good times

If there’s anyone guaranteed to grab a headline, it’s Liz Truss. Britain’s shortest serving prime minister made a brief but memorable appearance before getting the hell out of there.

Speaking to the Telegraph in a packed hall of fans (yep, they still exist), Truss refused to rule out standing again for parliament even after losing her Tory safe seat at the election. She said her current focus is on “saving Western civilization,” so we can all rest easy.

Truss also decided to have a pop at her old boss Theresa May — “part of the establishment” — and then stressed she off course didn’t want to “indulge in a slagging match” with old rivals like Theresa May.

In a sign her confidence knows no bounds, Truss insisted the Tories would have done better under her leadership than they did under successor Rishi Sunak.

Still, the faithful lapped it up. Journalists had to arrive 90 minutes early to guarantee a seat. It’s a hard life!

Rishi Sunak hailed as election-winning mastermind

The defeated former prime minister had the best approach to Conservative conference: do it in one day.

Sunak — who gambled on a snap election and lost, badly — delivered a short farewell speech to members in a makeshift nightclub.

Most surprising however was the reaction to a leader who had just led members to their worst ever defeat. When Sunak apologized for the election result, one giddy fan shouted: “It wasn’t you!”

The mood only improved from there, with one attendee pleading with the leader of the opposition to stay on. There were spontaneous cheers, some whooping — and shouts of “thank you Rishi.”

Say what? Members go off message

Here’s a reminder that political activists who are keen enough to take time off work to attend a party conference aren’t always entirely representative of the wider country.

A members’ debate on immigration on the main conference stage saw one individual asked if the party would, erm, “rehabilitate Enoch Powell.”

Powell was sacked from then-Prime Minister Ted Heath’s Shadow Cabinet in 1968 after a highly controversial “rivers of blood” speech which was seen as spreading falsehoods about immigrants and fanning the flames of the far-right.

The member in question said it was in fact a “highly conservative speech” for which poor old Powell was “smeared and kicked out of the party.” Yikes. 

Perhaps the most bizarre moment involved Jay Chan, a Tory member who apologized to the Birmingham conference center cleaning team for “throwing up at the carpet” after drinking too much back in 2022.

Posing with an apology card and Quality Street chocolates, Chan met the cleaning team’s supervisor who seemed … somewhat bemused by the whole situation.