Tories are positioning themselves as the party of the NHS

In recent weeks Boris Johnson has ramped up his hospital visits and is making a naked play for it to be his top domestic policy beyond Brexit. It is also a way to directly encroach on Labour’s turf should there be an election. He began conference claiming 40 new hospitals would be built in the next 10 years and ended the four-day event by dedicating a sizeable chunk of his speech to the NHS. He described it as “holy to the people of this country” and got cheers from the conference floor when he said: “It is time for us to say loud and clear we are the party of the NHS.”

His play to become the face of Tory investment in health, despite Theresa May being responsible for the increase in funding, is wrapped up in his renewed push to present himself as a one nation Conservative. Meanwhile, the party chairman, James Cleverly, twice infuriated Labour politicians when he claimed at fringe events that it was in fact the Tories who founded the NHS, via the efforts of Sir Henry Willnick, a Tory MP who made suggestions for a form of nationalised health service in 1944.

Tories are talking tough on law and order

The home secretary, Priti Patel, delivered the most hardline and rightwing of all the speeches during conference as she careered through pledges on tougher jail sentences for sex offenders, more Tasers for officers, stamping out “evil” county lines drug gangs with a fresh £20m investment and pausing for dramatic effect with her warning to criminals: “We are coming after you.” The biggest applause was reserved for her pledge to end free movement once and for all and repeating the pre-announced introduction of an Australian-style immigration system. She also appeared to be enjoying her much seized-upon line: “This daughter of immigrants needs no lectures from the north London liberal elite.” This felt odd considering the prime minister, Boris Johnson, lived in Islington until a few years ago and his strategist Dominic Cummings is still a resident.

Ministers have no clue of their own government’s Brexit plan

The secrecy around the prime minister’s Brexit plan was painfully clear when even his cabinet ministers were unable to field questions on the subject in a series of awkward interviews. The security minister and former party chairman Brandon Lewis was ripped apart by BBC Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis for not being able to give details on Johnson’s final offer to the EU, or explain how the government might deliver Brexit on 31 October. The leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, was uncharacteristically coy on Channel 4 News on Tuesday when asked about Johnson’s Brexit offer to the EU, saying: “I am yet to hear the final details.”

The international trade secretary, Liz Truss, made the shrewdest move when asked about how the government could get around the Benn Act, the legislation that blocks a no-deal Brexit. She said she was sure the prime minister, Rees-Mogg and Michael Gove, the cabinet minister for no-deal planning, had “got it covered”.

Resurgence of the Democratic Unionist party

The DUP was once again the centre of attention and its conference event, a reception entitled Together for the United Kingdom, was the hottest ticket in town on Tuesday night. The lively event had all the hubris of the DUP’s 2017 Tory conference party event, held just months after it signed the confidence and supply agreement to prop up Theresa May’s government. Its sudden announcement that it backed the prime minister’s final offer to the EU on replacing the backstop set tongues wagging.

After heavily resisting any alignment with the EU on customs, the DUP now appears willing to accept Johnson’s complex-sounding border solution that would keep Northern Ireland tied to Brussels regulation until 2025. The leader, Arlene Foster, said it was time to get a deal done, prompting speculation that it is the DUP’s own fear of a potential Jeremy Corbyn government that has secured fresh cooperation with the Tories.

One nation vs free-market Thatcherism

Johnson made great efforts to present himself as a softer, kinder, one nation Tory throughout the conference. We were to frame his hardline Brexit stance as an aberration to get Brexit done, he suggested. He even told the BBC’s Nick Robinson that he was still the same “generous-hearted, loving, caring” person he had been when he was mayor of London.

However, the Brexit-backing, free-market Thatcherite wing was heavily in attendance at this year’s conference with scores of younger members – mostly besuited and with heavy use of Instagram and Twitter – a noticeable presence at fringe events and parties. The Institute for Economic Affairs events were packed and standing room only, while the IEA’s joint party with the Taxpayers Alliance was a giddy affair with guests including Rees-Mogg and the pro-Brexit former minister Penny Mordaunt. The free-marketeer Truss was stopped for selfies everywhere she went.