Tory Party Conference 2023 LIVE: Rishi Sunak set to confirm HS2 plans in keynote speech as he looks to ‘fundamentally change the country’ with annual meeting drawing to an end

The Daily Mail’s Andrew Pierce described Suella Braverman’s address to the Conservative Party Conference yesterday as a ‘very brave radical speech’.

He gave his thoughts on ITV’s Good Morning Britain during a discussion with Daily Mirror associate editor Kevin Maguire – who was less than complimentary.

Watch their thoughts in the video below:

The Daily Mail’s City Editor Alex Brummer has described the Government’s handling of HS2 as a ‘farce’:

Grant Shapps spoke in the morning media round today about how HS2 trains are still expected to run to Manchester.

It is believed that the Birmingham to Manchester leg of HS2 will not be high speed and will use existing West Coast Mainline track.

HS2 is expected to eventually start at London Euston rather than Old Oak Common in Acton – which will likely be the terminus when it first opens – but will not be high speed between Birmingham and Manchester.

The rail line will stop in Manchester, but will switch to use existing track from Birmingham, meaning it will run at a slower pace.

Read the full story on MailOnline:

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said ‘there are other options’ when it was put to him that if the money is not there and if the country cannot afford it, there is no option but to cancel the Manchester to Birmingham leg of HS2.

He told BBC Breakfast: ‘Well, no, there are other options because what they could do is prioritise the northern section, as I’ve said, and we’re prepared to have a conversation about that.

‘We’ve been saying that to the Prime Minister all week, and then perhaps protect the line south from Manchester to Birmingham so that when the country can afford it, it can be completed at a later date.’

And asked if Labour form the next Government, if he thinks there would be a commitment to reinstating that link between Birmingham and Manchester, he said he ‘certainly hopes so’ and he ‘absolutely will be hoping to persuade them to go ahead with it’.

He added: ‘It always seems that people here where I live and where I kind of represent can be treated as second class citizens when it comes to transport. But you know, my message back to all the main parties is, we’re not going to put up with that anymore.

‘It’s not right. It’s not fair. And to do this to this city region and this part of the world when they’re here for the conference, it does say something, doesn’t it, about how politicians think they can treat the north, and it’s just not acceptable.’

Cabinet minister Grant Shapps claimed Manchester will still experience a ‘much faster journey time’ after high-speed rails there are axed by Rishi Sunak.

The Defence Secretary, who was until September last year transport secretary, told BBC Breakfast this morning: ‘HS2 trains will run to Manchester, so they’ll still come into Manchester Piccadilly, they’ll still run to Leeds, there will still be a much faster journey time than there has been in the past.

‘And not just because some of the section will be actually conventional high speed, or new high speed rail, but also because even the older section can have further upgrades to, for example, its digital infrastructure which is the way the signalling works.

‘The third thing is until people hear what the money can be used for and therefore the benefits across large parts of the North, for example, it is very hard to judge the full package.’

Members of the drivers’ union Aslef at 16 train operators in England are on strike today, coinciding with the final day of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester.

Operators warning of no services include Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry, Northern and TransPennine Express, which all serve the North West of England.

The only train services listed to and from at Manchester Piccadilly station this morning are those run by Transport for Wales, including routes to and from Cardiff, Holyhead, Llandudno, Swansea, Carmarthen and Manchester Airport.

There are no trains listed as running to or from Manchester Victoria station today.

Here is a photograph taken this morning of commuters standing in front of an information sign detailing strike action at Manchester Piccadilly station:

You can read more about the train strikes in this article on MailOnline here:

A new transport line across the north of England is ‘probably the highest transport priority in the country’ for people in Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham said.

The Greater Manchester mayor told BBC Breakfast: ‘As I understand it, they are going to pull the plug on the possibility of a new line across the north of England.

‘And if you speak to anybody who lives here, they would say that is probably the highest transport priority in the country, because people travelling from Liverpool to Manchester to Leeds and beyond, just suffer daily misery trying to do that journey. And that new line is critically important to the north of England in the rest of this century.

‘So unless they commit to that new line via Manchester Piccadilly with an underground station there going via Bradford and on to Leeds, we will not be satisfied with what they promised and what they’re doing because we’ve not had a commitment to this line in one Conservative manifesto, not two but three Conservative manifestos, since George Osborne first promised the northern powerhouse.’

Cabinet minister Grant Shapps all but confirmed that HS2 will be axed between Birmingham and Manchester by Rishi Sunak in his Conservative conference speech.

The Defence Secretary, who was until September last year transport secretary, told BBC Breakfast this morning: ‘We have to wait for his actual speech to hear exact confirmation.

‘He’s taken a very close careful look at that second part of the HS2 line – I keep reading that HS2 will be scrapped, HS2 will actually run.

‘That second part of the line, the balance that has to be made given that bit has not been built yet, is whether it makes sense to carry on building that given the world has changed.’

Mr Shapps added: ‘A decision like this actually points to something else about Rishi Sunak and the sort of things he’s saying today, which is rather than thinking about things in the very short-term he’s prepared to take a look at difficult decisions, things like should we carry on because that’s what we were doing even though the world’s changed and do the hard things.

‘It’s much harder to change tracks on something like this when you see the world’s changed than it is just to plough on, it will attract criticism when you do these things. He’s prepared to take those long-term difficult decisions because he thinks we can get to a bright future by doing them.’

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham said the latest proposal to cut the Manchester to Birmingham leg of HS2 is ‘not a workable plan’ and there is ‘huge frustration and growing anger in Greater Manchester’.

He told BBC Breakfast: ‘It’s so frustrating. It just proves there’s still so many people in politics, many of them in the Tory party, that think they can treat the north of England differently to the way they treat other parts of the country it’s just so wrong.

‘I’ve been in politics 30 years, I’ve never seen a party come to a conference and leave an axe hanging over the place they’re in for the whole week. And then actually drop it on that place.

‘I just don’t think it’s fair to people in Greater Manchester to do this and the plan that they’re putting forward, that we’ve only seen briefed overnight because we haven’t even been told what it is, takes trains off HS2 at Birmingham and puts them on the existing tracks of the West Coast Mainline that just simply isn’t going to work. It’s not a workable plan and you know, you can understand why there is just huge frustration and indeed growing anger in Greater Manchester about this.’

The Daily Mail’s front page today carries praise from Quentin Letts for Suella Braverman’s speech yesterday, in which he describes the Home Secretary as ‘a tornado making a determined path towards polite conventions, ripping elite etiquette from its moorings’:

There was no early night for Rishi Sunak before his debut conference speech as leader today, reports MailOnline’s deputy political editor DAVID WILCOCK.

He was out and about at parties at the Midland Hotel, the social centre point of the event in Manchester.

And in between the Prime Minister – who doesn’t drink – was mobbed by well-refreshed party members as he did a walkabout in the hotel bar.

Nigel Farage fever swept Tory conference yesterday as he posed for selfies with activists – but dismissed talk of rejoining.

Rishi Sunak hinted that the door is open for the Brexit champion to make a comeback after he was the surprise hit of the gathering in Manchester.

The Prime Minister insisted the party is a ‘broad church’ and welcomed anyone who shares ‘our values’ when quizzed on the Brexit champion rejoining.

But the ex-MEP quickly poured cold water on the idea, condemning the Conservatives for hiking taxes and failing to tackle immigration.

Read the full story on MailOnline here:

The Tory London assembly chair was dramatically escorted out of Suella Braverman’s speech yesterday after heckling her comments on gender.

Andrew Boff was dragged out of the hall in Manchester after hitting out at the Home Secretary for talking ‘trash’ about ‘gender ideology’.

He started complaining after Ms Braverman said ministers must challenge the ‘poison’ of concepts such as white privilege and gender ideology.

Read the full story from MailOnline’s political editor James Tapsfield here:

Nationalism is ‘in retreat’ in Scotland and the Union is stronger under the current Tory Government, Michael Gove declared yesterday.

The Levelling Up Secretary told the Conservative conference that the UK is now more secure amid the crisis engulfing the SNP.

He also hailed this week’s announcement of a UK-wide fund to boost town centres, which will see £20million each given to seven Scottish councils over the next decade.

Read the full story from the Scottish Daily Mail here:

Suella Braverman’s powerful and thought-provoking speech in Washington last week on clamping down on mass migration had cossetted liberals spluttering into their teacups in outrage.

If any tuned in to the Home Secretary’s address to the Tory party conference, they’d have been advised to first put down their fine china. This was her previous oratory shot through with steroids.

Read the full DAILY MAIL COMMENT piece by clicking below:

Suella Braverman ignited a new war on woke yesterday – vowing that only the Tories could stop political correctness strangling Britain.

The Home Secretary told the Tory party conference the country would ‘go properly woke’ under a Labour government.

To a packed auditorium in Manchester, she mocked ‘Keir ‘take the knee’ Starmer’, predicting that wokery would ‘run riot’ if he won the keys to No 10.

Read the full story from the Daily Mail’s home affairs editor David Barrett here:

Plenty of Tory MPs were left outraged after Liz Truss, the 49-day PM, upstaged ministers with a carefully choreographed call for tax cuts at conference earlier in the week, writes ANDREW PIERCE.

But Truss has been doing worse than simply stealing headlines. Over the summer, she launched her so- called ‘Growth Commission’, with the backing of international economists, in an attempt to restore some credibility to her battered reputation.

The talk in the conference bars is that 64 Tory MPs have now joined the group – including some serving ministers and four former Cabinet ministers such as Dame Priti Patel.

Read the full story by ANDREW PIERCE on MailOnline here:

Predictable voices will hate it, writes QUENTIN LETTS. But even they must admit that Sou’wester Sue was, as they say in twister corridor in Kansas , one heck of a blow.

What a wig-lifter of a speech. If Michael Fabricant was there, his topknot must have been blown all the way to Bolton.

Suella Braverman described an immigration ‘hurricane’ but she herself was a tornado making a determined path towards polite conventions, ripping elite etiquette from its moorings. The Establishment will be appalled. Tory activists (bar one) loved it.

Read the full article by QUENTIN LETTS on MailOnline here:

Rishi Sunak will today vow to end 30 years of failed ‘status quo’ politics – as he takes the axe to HS2 and unveils billions for new transport projects in the North.

The Prime Minister will use the most important speech of his premiership to paint himself as an agent of change who is willing to make tough decisions in the country’s long-term interests.

He will acknowledge that Westminster politics is ‘broken’ and declare a mission to ‘fundamentally change our country’.

Read the full story from the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves and David Churchill here:

Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s rhetoric is ‘certainly no Enoch Powell situation’, her Cabinet colleague Grant Shapps said as he defended her claim that a ‘hurricane’ of mass migration is coming.

The Defence Secretary told Times Radio: ‘She makes the absolutely correct point we’ve already seen a lot of movement… we could see a lot more, a hurricane, as she describes it, of people moving.’

Asked about comparisons which have been made to Enoch Powell’s infamous ‘rivers of blood’ speech, he said: ‘So many people are from immigrant backgrounds in this country. I think I’m third generation myself… Suella’s first generation, her parents came over in the 60s. So this is certainly no Enoch Powell situation, is it, to make the very obvious point.’

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps suggested there may be more ‘worthwhile’ ways of spending money than on completing the Manchester to Birmingham leg of HS2.

Speaking to GB News this morning, he said there had been a ‘change in travel patterns’ since the pandemic and suggested there could be ‘fantastic levelling opportunity’ from diverting funding to other projects.

Asked whether ministers were turning their back on levelling up by scrapping part of the planned rail line, Mr Shapps said: ‘It absolutely is not turning our back at all.

‘In fact, of course, we need to wait for the Prime Minister’s speech. If he were to scrap the second leg of HS2… and take that money, you can’t really judge it without finding out where that money is going to be spent because that could actually have a fantastic levelling up opportunity.

‘Billions of pounds, tens of billions of pounds, so what could that be spent on?

‘And perhaps there are things which are worthwhile doing more than building a high-speed rail line given Covid, given what’s happened, given the change in travel patterns.’

Here is the schedule for the morning media round today:

6.20am: Northern Powerhouse Partnership chief executive Henri Murison, LBC
6.45am: Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, GB News
7.00am: Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Times Radio
7.10am: Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, BBC Breakfast
7.20am: Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Sky News
7.30am: Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, BBC Breakfast
8.10am: Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham, ITV’s Good Morning Britain
8.30am: Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, ITV’s Good Morning Britain
8.35am: Andrew Boff, London Assembly chair who was ejected from the conference hall during Suella Braverman’s speech, LBC

The main speeches at the Conservative Party Conference today are as follows:

11.15am: Penny Mordaunt, Leader of the House of Commons

11.30am: Johnny Mercer, Minister for Veterans’ Affairs

11.45am Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister

Good morning and welcome to MailOnline’s live coverage of the final day of the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester.

Later, Rishi Sunak will rail against post-Thatcher politics and attempt to portray himself as a radical reformer as he faced a backlash for abandoning the northern leg of HS2.

The Prime Minister will use his speech to try to convince the public he will ‘fundamentally change the country’ and fix Westminster’s ‘broken system’.

Stay with our liveblog throughout today for all the updates.