Labour and Tories gain ground after conference season, panel says

Party conference season has ended with a political panel split over whether the big parties have regained control of British politics. The discussion began from the claim after May's elections that a fractured system was here to stay and that smaller parties were displacing Labour and the Conservatives. By autumn, the panel heard, the picture looked different. Andy Burnham and Kemi Badenoch were said to have flexed their muscles at their conferences and to have emerged stronger within their parties, while the Greens, Reform and the Liberal Democrats had each had a difficult period.

Nadine argued that Reform was not going anywhere. She said the party was in a bad patch and would face a Standards Commissioner report on Nigel Farage. If the commissioner found against him, she said there would probably be another by-election, which Farage would win. She also said recent polls were within the margin of error and that Westminster tools were often used against right-wing leaders.

Jo said there had been a shift. In her view, the Conservatives and Labour had had a bounce, with Jo saying Labour had had a bounce from a new Prime Minister in Andy Burnham. She said claims that Reform would sweep to power and that the Greens would replace Labour had diminished, but she insisted neither party was finished. Reform, she added, faced a pincer movement from a resurgent Conservative leader in Kemi Badenoch and from Restore on the other side. She said polling support for Nigel Farage, Zack Polanski and the Greens had fallen, and that the big tribes were back and feeling more confident, though multi-party politics had not been disproved.

Dale, a Labour donor, said he had never accepted that Reform were sweeping to power or that the two-party system was over. He described the earlier polling as a protest vote rather than a sign of voting intention. He said voters had been disappointed after giving Labour a large majority and that not enough had happened. That was changing, he argued, with Andy Burnham, whom he described as popular and getting things done. He predicted a two-horse race at the next election, with Reform continuing to fall because its people, policies and outcomes were bad.

The presenter closed by clarifying that Nadine had referred to one of the Reform people identified in an undercover documentary report as a paedophile, and that the allegation has not been proven. The panel disagreed about the strength of the smaller parties, but agreed that the conference season had changed the political weather.