The great and the good of the Conservative party turned out last night to mark the opening of the new building for Tory high command. For nearly two decades, the Conservatives have lacked a permanent home, ever since Smith Square – the site of Mrs Thatcher’s three election victories –had to be sold off in 2007. Since then, they have rented offices in, first, Milbank Tower and currently, Matthew Parker Street. But now the Tories boast a new address: 1 Castle Lane in Victoria, just a ten minute stroll from their current base. The £14.3 million building was bought by the Conservative Foundation, thanks to a generous legacy from the late Lord Sainsbury, to ensure that no party leader is flogged to sell the base at the behest of bean-counters in future.
Parliamentarians, donors and various apparatchiks crammed in last night to hear a succession of speeches celebrating the party’s future. Lord Spencer, the Chairman of the Foundation, gave the introduction. ‘This party, as you all know, has had 200 years of history behind us, and there is no reason we cannot have 200 years ahead of us too.’ Of the building’s five floors, two and a half will be leased to the party at a peppercorn rate of £1 a year. ‘The Foundation was established specifically to build long term financial stability for the party through legacy fundraising, and to build a capital endowment’, said Spencer. Having achieved the first stage by buying this freehold, ‘We will now move on to the next stage to grow our existing modest but not insignificant investment portfolio through legacy and focussed fundraising.’
‘There is no reason we cannot have 200 years ahead of us too.’
Kemi Badenoch’s speech was well-received, mixing pride in the party’s past with recognition of the challenges of the present. ‘The Conservative party has a long and proud history’, she said, ‘and we need to make sure that we continue to be great custodians of that.’ Noting how ‘we are the smallest opposition ever’, she listed the party’s achievements and criticised Reform ‘who are unprepared for governing, who think that this is all a game’. The building’s opening served as an apt metaphor for the Conservatives. ‘We have to be the responsible right. We are the thoughtful right. We are the careful right, not the careless right, not the right wing that just says things without worrying about the consequences. We care about consequences.’
Boris Johnson, predictably, made the most amusing speech. Thanking the party HQ for past services, including ‘the fantastic help with styling and makeup and hair’, he pointed out that ‘one of your most brilliant and creative directors of communications actually married me – by common consent a selfless and heroic thing.’ Keir Starmer, he suggested, is now merely ‘waiting for execution, sitting in his cell like a stunned mullet, blinking through his £8,000 funded by Waheed Alli spectacles.’ He amused the room too by riffing off the Makerfield by-election. ‘Is it not wonderful, poetic, beautiful to see Reform now being devoured, haemorrhaging votes on the right to this party called Restore, which sounds like a sort of hair loss potion or something.’ Voters, Johnson suggested, were crying out instead for a ‘great united One Nation Conservative party’ under a leader who has;
All the brains and the patience and the good humour and the instincts to deliver, to deliver that and enact that conservative agenda. All she needs is the right headquarters… and here it all is! This is the armoury in which all the brilliant conservative policies will be forged.
It was a generous tribute to Badenoch. But it was left to Theresa May, the only party leader who previously served as party chair, who articulated the feeling best. ‘This building gives a message’, she said. ‘It is a message of confidence – of confidence in the Conservative party, under Kemi’s leadership, of confidence in the Conservative Party for the future. The message this building is to other political parties is this: Watch out, the Conservatives are back.’ The opening of the new headquarters last night was a testament to just how much intellectual, political and financial capital is invested in ensuring that they do.
