Kensington Kemi, my Kween

Kemi Badenoch has pitched herself towards M&S Tories. In her conference speech this week she said: “Just like M&S we must learn from our mistakes, win back trust, and make people feel good about our party again.” It follows polling shows that people who shop in more upmarket supermarkets like M&S and Sainsbury’s are the most likely to voter Conservative compared to Morrisons and Lidl shoppers who prefer Reform UK.

It is a message that I’m sure will resonate with many City AM readers. M&S is the supermarket for young professionals who like gins in tins and (forgive this appalling term) ‘picky bits’. It’s also the supermarket for working mums who shop online with Ocado.

Since Brexit the Conservative Party has turned away from the aspirational, middle classes, believing future victories lay in the ‘Red Wall’. Yet it is Brexit-voting constituencies in those former Labour heartlands that have the most reason to feel betrayed by the last Conservative government, in particular the failure to reduce net migration.

So Kemi is probably right to pivot back to a Conservative comfort zone pitch for people who are affluent on paper, but overtaxed and hemmed in by an overzealous state. The problem is that, glorious though the metropolitan elite are, in an era of declining growth and living standards there’s not enough of us to win anyone an election.

Here are some of the best pieces from this week’s City AM opinion pages. Enjoy and have a great weekend.

Alys

The story of the East End is one of total transformation. Twenty-five years ago, one of this area’s most infamous landmarks was ‘Fridge Mountain’ – a massive mound of discarded white goods that was 20 feet tall and almost a kilometre long. Look for it now, though, and Fridge Mountain is nowhere to be seen. In its place stands the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, transformed over the last 10 years.

In Stratford, which has become one of Europe’s largest and most successful regeneration projects, stories like this aren’t the exception – they’re the rule. The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park alone now supports more than 38,000 jobs, generating around £3.5bn for the economy annually and attracting 20m visits each year. But this success story isn’t over yet – I want to bring cross-channel rail services to Stratford International so we can take this diverse, dynamic corner of London to a whole new level, says Mayor of London Sadiq Khan

At the beginning of October 1999, the election for the new post of Mayor of London was only seven months away. Ken Livingstone, left-wing MP for Brent East and the last leader of the Greater London Council before its abolition in 1986, wanted to be Labour’s candidate, while Tony Blair’s New Labour camarilla would have preferred almost anyone else.

The Conservatives saw internal Labour division as a straw and clutched at it. Over the summer of 1999, a frenetic campaign saw novelist Jeffrer Archer and former transport minister Steve Norris battle it out, and Archer won the ballot of party members 71 per cent to 29 per cent.

53 days later it was all over. The News of the World published allegations that Archer had perjured himself in his 1987 libel trial, and he withdrew his nomination.

That Archer had won the candidacy so convincingly in the first place said something profound about him and about the Conservative Party, recalls Eliot Wilson

I’m in a very bad place. For the last three days, I’ve been in Birmingham at the Conservative Party’s annual conference. The mood at this year’s edition was – as ever – remarkably jubilant. Despite the tricky couple of years the party has faced since its electoral battering, the Tory faithful remain present, engaged and optimistic.

What always strikes me about Conservative Party conference is how young everyone seems to be. The average at which one starts voting Tory is 63, but you wouldn’t guess it hanging around Brum. There is a dedicated cadre of young Conservatives who populate the conference. The men are often seen in double-breasted jackets and the women wear long dresses in Tory blue.

Conference is their Woodstock, and good for them. We all need a hobby.

What I struggle to reconcile though is why they continue to vote Conservative, given how poorly the party treated young people for 14 years, says Joseph Dinnage.

Three years on from the October 7 massacre, Benjamin Bell writes how life has changed for him as a Jewish Londoner.

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