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See The Maddest (And Scariest) Moments From The Tory Conference

Where to even begin?
Kate Nicholson
By 

Senior Trends Reporter, HuffPost UK

Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman all made headlines during the Tory Party conference in Manchester this week
Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman all made headlines during the Tory Party conference in Manchester this week
Getty

The Conservative Party conference may have just drawn to a close, but some of the moments from the four-day event will stay with us forever.

Hundreds of delegates descended on Manchester this week to swap ideas about Conservative values and – ultimately – to help raise money for the party.

And the annual get-together has certainly made a lot of headlines over just a few days – just not necessarily for the right reasons.

So here’s a look at some of the most unexpected, jaw-dropping or overlooked moments from the jam-packed affair...

1. Tory chair Greg Hands slammed the Labour leader for “flip flopping” over his policies, and offered to sell pairs of “Sir Keir Starmer flip flops for just £16.99”.

2. Liz Truss’s hardline speech drew in a huge crowd a year after her policies crashed the economy, triggering her resignation.

3. Claire Coutinho started a beef with Labour – the energy secretary claimed the opposition were considering taxing meat, even though this is not a Labour policy.

4. Priti Patel heaped praise on GB News one week after Ofcom launched another investigation into the broadcaster.

5. Nigel Farage and Priti Patel were seen singing and dancing together to Frank Sinatra’s I Love You Baby.

6. A huge crowd formed at the book signing for ex-PM Theresa May’s new exposé, Abuse of Power.

7. Lee Anderson asked why anyone would want to go to Bradford when asked about HS2. He said: “Anyone here from Bradford? Would you want to get there quicker?”

8. Michael Gove claimed Brexit did actually deliver on the £350m a week for the NHS.

9. Jacob Rees-Mogg openly supported hormone-injected beef from Australia.

10. After one Tory MP claimed that asylum seekers may pretend to be gay to get through the system, Rees-Mogg suggested some may self-harm.

11. Transport secretary Mark Harper was accused of spouting right-wing conspiracy theories after claiming local councils want to control how often you go to the shops.

12. Rishi Sunak did not rule out former UKIP leader and former Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage’s return to the Tory Party.

13. Farage later said he wouldn’t join or even vote for the Tories, saying it represented “nothing I believe in”.

14. Suella Braverman doubled down on her divisive rhetoric, saying there would be a “hurricane” of migrants coming to the UK.

15. On the Human Rights Act, the home secretary said: “I’m surprised they didn’t call it the criminal rights act.”

16. Tory candidate for London mayor, Susan Hall, claimed some Jews are “frightened” of current mayor Sadiq Khan. She later refused to apologise, claiming she had been misunderstood.

17. The London chair of the Conservative party, Andrew Boff, was kicked out of Suella Braverman’s speech, after complaining she was delivering a “homophobic rant”.

18. Suella Braverman was pictured standing on a guide dog’s tail.

19. The Conservatives released a new poster which claims they are “kicking woke ideology out of science”.

20. A lavish auction hosted by the Conservative Democratic Organisation saw a lunch with Priti Patel go for £1,700 amid the current cost of living crisis.

21. Kemi Badenoch claimed Britain is the best country to be Black a week after Braverman claimed multiculturalism has failed.

22. Jeremy Hunt asked if voters wanted “sound money under the Conservatives or to run out money under Labour”, despite being brought in as chancellor after his Tory predecessor crashed the economy.

23. West Midlands Tory mayor Andy Street made an impromptu speech against the cancellation of the Manchester leg of HS2. Reports that he was considering quitting soon followed.

24. After repeatedly insisting they had not decided to scrap the HS2 line to Manchester, the Tories scrapped the HS2 line to Manchester, while meeting in a former railway station Manchester.

25. Tory press office reportedly refuse to let newspaper sketch writers in the conference room where Sunak was to give his closing comments.

26. Akshata Murthy gives an unexpected introduction to Sunak, claiming her husband, the PM, is a man of “honesty and integrity”. It comes after days of criticism over Sunak’s lack of transparency over HS2.

27. Rishi Sunak said there is a feeling that “politics just doesn’t work the way it should” in the UK in his closing speech. The Tories have been in power since 2010 and Sunak became PM by default last year when all other Tory leadership contenders pulled out.

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