Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government.

I'm Hannah White. Get the Barocco supplies in, check the train strikes schedule and prepare for an unhealthy beige diet washed down by lukewarm

white wine. Is it really already a year since Liz Truss and Quasi Quartang endured one of

the most eventful party conferences in living memory? I'm afraid it is. The party conferences

are here again. The Lib Dems have been to Bournemouth already. Ed Davy has been in

and out of a canoe. Labour are preparing to decamp to Liverpool in a fortnight.

But this weekend the Conservatives head north, hopefully on a quick train line to Manchester, and the IFG will be there too.

So what will be the big issues being debated on the conference floor and in the fringe events?

Just how unified is the Conservative Party right now, or should we be expecting to see different factions differentiating themselves?

What does Rishi Sunatney to do, and what might he announced?

All that to come on today's episode.

Joining me throughout is IFG Program Director, and I think she calls herself a veteran conference survivor, Kath Haddon.

I certainly do not call myself that, but I am still here after last year's conference,

so I suppose I am. What's your top conference survival tip? Dinner, at least one solid meal

during the course of the day, preferably before the evening receptions. And I'm delighted that

we're joined by not one but two guests today. In the studio with us is Robert Colville,

director of the Centre for Policy

Studies and Sunday Times columnist. Hi Robert. Hello. I assume you've got a busy fringe schedule

set up as well. Yeah, absolutely. Just get there on Sunday lunchtime and then run events back to back.

And joining us down the line is James Heel, political correspondent at The Spectator. Hi, James.

Hello. You've already been to one conference, I understand. How are you bearing up?

Yes, well, I mean, this is a sort of magical mystery tour around the United Kingdom.

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