Get ready for Series 2

The new Labour Prime Minister wants to make old things new again: public control of utilities, social care delivered on the original model of the NHS and re-runs of Brexit dramas. A reborn Conservative leader wants big tax cuts paid for by even bigger spending cuts, in total command of a still fragile party. A defiant Reform leader wants to leave behind the difficult storylines of last season and resume his march on power.

As the UK-wide conference season draws to its conclusion (and with apologies to the SNP who gather in Aberdeen next week), the contours of the second part of this Parliament are clear.

The next cliffhanger is poised: when will Andy Burnham call a General Election? Despite his protests, few see a road to the summer of 2029 without the PM asking the country for a fresh mandate.

Burnham has an agenda far bolder than the manifesto he inherited from Keir Starmer and it was outlined with verve in Liverpool. But looking ahead to 2030 does little to solve the short-term problems caused by global storms and a mounting debt pile at home. With a huge majority in hand, the PM will need more than £2 bus fares to grow his modest lead in the polls.

How will he and Chancellor John Healey navigate the Budget on October 28? How will they get to the Spending Review - apparently slipping back into the second half of 2027 - without being forced to confront shortfalls in defence spending, a vast social care ambition and hard-to-stomach real-term cuts in many departmental budgets?

Kemi Badenoch’s answer in Birmingham today is they will not. Warning the whole UK “will pay” for the impact of an old-school tax-and-spend Prime Minister, the Tory leader said the coming years would be a “battle for the soul” of the UK.

The Tory leader's speech to the Birmingham faithful was uneven. Too long, ponderous in parts, the electric attacks on Reform as bad people and Burnham as a failure waiting to happen were received with endless, thunderous applause.

History suggests promises to slash inheritance tax will be welcomed by many, even if the wider economic climate is worse than when George Osborne played the same trick in 2008.

Badenoch is in a curious position as she takes on her second PM. Her position is completely secure even while her polling position is stuck in the mud. She does at least have more to oppose now. Her pro-business, anti-welfare tax-cutting platform is designed for voters lost to both Reform and the Liberal Democrats. Without Nigel Farage’s ability to dominate the news agenda, Badenoch might even be fancied to win what looks a pretty old-school tussle reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s.

But Reform are very much still present and involved. Farage has undoubtedly gone backwards amid storms over donations and uneasy flirting with dangerous trends even further to his right. But he’s far from finished and still has a platform to build on.

A "battle of ideas" is cliche for a reason. For much of the last 30 years, there has not truly been wide dividing lines on most issues.

But as conference season 2026 concludes, it is a battle which is playing out as a long (long, long…) general election campaign already underway.