Have the Conservatives stopped the slide towards irrelevance their opponents had hoped for?

It’s a Hollywood cliché shot.

A protagonist sliding seemingly inexorably to the precipice that will signal their doom and just before it happens, they dig in and somehow halt their death slide. They lie there breathless and shaken in the moment, and slowly, very slowly start the difficult climb back up out of harm’s way.

After the activity of the leadership contest and the relative interest in that, a narrative built up, fuelled by a desire from Reform and the slightly smug new Labour government – remember the ‘grown ups have arrived’ stuff – a narrative that the Tories were sliding out of existence. At times it looked like they might.

That existential crisis, and a rampant Reform vowing to ‘destroy’ them  was real.

Am I about to argue it’s all better now? No.

But in the past month the Conservative party may just have thrown the ice axe and arrested the descent. Since I started this job, I’ve been talking to all levels of the party a lot and the mood has noticeably changed.

At last year’s Conference where there was an odd air of undeserved optimism compared to the gloom at Labour’s (maybe we know why now) but in Birmingham it felt like the exuberance of someone still a bit punch drunk who had taken a fresh blow to the head; ‘do you guys even realise how badly hurt you are?!’

Perhaps they did.

Then as the bruises started to come out there were the dark whispers that they’d chosen the wrong leader, the party was still thinking left not right, Reform were going to kill us off, that Labour would get their act together, we have no policies, the party hasn’t said sorry enough.

For some time it was ‘repeat to fade.’

All this has swirled around the chat threads, on the phone and on the margins of any gathering of Conservatives, large or small. It permeated for longer than the leadership would have liked or were remotely comfortable with. Those conversations still exist, the concerns are still voiced, but the certainty behind them has been weakened.

Some confident predictions about the Tories fate have become less confident, even if they haven’t disappeared.

Nobody seems much in the mood for another leadership election, now. The net zero target being abandoned has not smacked to members of ‘wets’ or ‘liberal democrats’ still in charge. Reform are still a challenge, but have come under much more scrutiny, and not always emerged shining. Labour most certainly haven’t got their act together, and the Conservatives have taken on the chin – that they are sorry they didn’t deliver on ket things and accepted their infighting in the latter years of Government meant they deserved the kicking they got.

William Atkinson, late of this parish, our columnist Peter Franklin and others have argued on ConservativeHome we are very far from out of the woods. They’re right. We have a voter demographic problem, the party needs internally rewiring, we need radical deliverable policy, we need people, and we need to be heard by people who still need to be convinced to even bother listening.

However to go back to the start, whilst the party still has the mountain it slid down to climb, the unwanted speedy descent to destruction seems, for the moment, to have been stalled. Why?

One factor has to be the stalled economy – as I wrote last weekend it’s “still, ‘the economy stupid’” – and the bizarre spectacle of a Chancellor smiling her way through the realisation that her plan, such as it was, is not only not working it’s going backwards, has contributed to that.

Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer whispered to each other on the front bench after her Spring Statement. The Daily Express hired a lip-reader to fathom what was said but all I could think of was General Melchet in BlackAdder IV:

“That’s the spirit! If all else fails a pig headed insistence not to look facts in the face will see us through”

There is undoubtably a sense of buyer’s remorse amongst parts of the electorate. That of course does not mean their votes are yet up for grabs but given that the ‘change’ they voted for is not the ‘change’ they are getting it is building doubt.

That doubt is infectious, with the left, and even Labour MPs looking at the welfare cuts and thinking – and sometimes saying out loud -‘what is a Labour Government for?’ It feels like Labour are having their own identity crisis.

When a BBC Radio4 comment programme, presented by good people – but all from the left, not a single right of centre voice among them- discuss the idea Starmer has no clear narrative or compelling vision, then something has shifted.

I make no apology for repeating, ad nauseam, that Labour’s problems do not mean Tory success. Sitting and waiting for them to implode would be to copy their biggest mistake – that of waiting for power to be gifted without having a plan. On that last point Sunak was right.

So what have the Conservatives been doing to suggest rumours of their demise might have been a little premature? And what, if any, evidence do I have?

Little things, nothing any Tory should be popping corks about, but here goes.

The polls, having dipped for Conservatives since the election, have not demonstrated a continued terminal slide their opponents had hoped to see. Equal, just behind, or in one – just one- poll on Wednesday, ahead. It amounts to little more than ‘you’re still in the game’, but that’s important morale wise.

The Opposition are starting to get the hang of opposition.

The shadow cabinet, with Robert Jenrick showing the way early on, is getting its teeth into the target rich environment Labour are serving up. Kemi Badenoch asked for patience, knew she had to start landing some punches, and has had some better times at recent PMQs and speeches. The Tories are scoring palpable hits on the economy, education, sentencing, energy policy and even – dare one say it – immigration – where Labour have not just failed to stop boats but are overseeing record numbers. The ’14 years’ refrain still exists, but is ever so slightly staler than it was.

Farage has had his Lowe point. I doubt it will translate into a dip in votes at the locals but it made potential defectors think twice about abandoning ship, and binding to a man who might turn on them. Reform set out on a marathon at sprint pace, they aren’t falling away, but that pace has slowed. There’s no big ‘pulling away from the pack.’

It’ll be the local elections that might see them pick it up again. Our last survey suggested that the Tories could expect a bad night, as should Labour.

However, Farage has been quite quiet since the Lowe farrago, because he is out of Westminster for most of the next month on a campaign tour for the locals. Despite rumours and suggestions she can’t be bothered, Kemi Badenoch is too and the Conservatives have been quietly picking up plenty of council seats over recent months.

The party isn’t bankrupt – I’ve never had so much push back over suggestions they are – and the latest public figures released suggest money is coming in. I’m repeatedly told it is – though it would be good to see the evidence – and Badenoch has been focussed on making sure the money does come in – another of the whispers that’s gone a bit quiet was that she couldn’t.

So, are the Conservatives back? No. Not yet. But at least there’s are signs the ‘yet’ is justified.

I can tell you the discontent has dropped off a bit, the slide downward has been stopped for the moment, and after the shock, plans for climbing up are already in place and starting to slowly emerge. The climbing is still ahead, however:

A more determined mood has emerged at the centre.

A more targeted approach as to what opposition should look like has evolved.

A more ‘waiting to see what happens’ mood has descended on the restless parts of the party.

Has the public noticed any change? I doubt that yet, but Labour doesn’t have anything like the monopoly on people’s attention now.

There is a caveat of course.

The problem with the Hollywood analogy is obvious.

In real life in the ‘arrested descent scenario’: in climbing back upwards one or two slip ups, and down you hurtle once again, and this time there might not be any second chance.