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First though, let us imagine a UK government that announced it planned to merge the combined authorities of Greater Manchester, the Liverpool City Region, South Yorkshire, York & North Yorkshire, and the North East into a single super-authority – with one democratically elected mayor overseeing officials seeking to engender better outcomes for a combined population of 9 million people. Imagine that the 29 councils, and their democratically elected administrations that make up those areas being told they will no longer have any formal role in the regional authority’s strategic decision-making. Such a plan would rightly be ridiculed. 

But that scenario is not an unreasonable description of London’s current system of governance – a consequence of the thinking and horse-trading which took place at the end of the last century when London devolution was being established. 

Getting London’s rewiring right this time matters.

For good and bad reasons, London remains the UK’s economic powerhouse. It has lifted the rest of the UK out of every recession since the British credit crisis of 1772–1773 (that’s the crash that arguably led to the American Revolution). 

London is Western Europe’s biggest city – roughly 15 times larger in area and four times more populous than the City of Paris, twice the landmass of New York City. Indeed, of the 27 European Union states, 13 have smaller national populations than London. 

Meanwhile more than 300 languages are spoken by Londoners, making it one of the most linguistically diverse cities in the world. And London tops almost every list of the world’s most important cities.

In this context, London’s 32 boroughs and the Corporation of London are a huge strength. Each electing representatives and leaders who know and care more about their proudly diverse places than any unelected official in a centralised authority ever could. Each demonstrating the innovation and drive that contributes to our Greater London.

In Sir Sadiq Khan, London has a Mayor that is an inspiration to people around the world – the very epitome of our forward thinking, progressive city – leading London with ambition.

So the questions are: how can we improve in such a way as to bring these strengths together; and how can we give London a system that better allows us to rise to the challenge of this fast-moving age while making sure London’s democracy delivers for generations to come? 

London Councils has started the work to answer these questions. It’s working cross-party with partners from across London and drawing on the evidence and experiences of elsewhere. 

There are historical precedents that can point the way. Almost 80 years ago the victorious powers gave West Germany a constitution which still serves its successor well today. 

Objectivity alongside principles such as subsidiarity and ensuring government is agile, responsive, representative of place and minimises disruption must form the bedrock of any change.

Little can be gained in drawing power out of Whitehall only to concentrate it in a new centre. Decisions and the funding behind them should sit as close to democratically led communities as possible.

London’s regional governance needs to evolve to reflect the realities of the modern era. A new governance settlement must mean boroughs and the Mayor taking some of the big strategic decisions together, like in all other Mayoral Strategic Authorities – rather than continuing to rely on voluntary cooperation. 

This is what London needs to better modernise public services, turbocharge housebuilding, deliver inclusive growth, tackle inequality and support Londoners with the jobs and skills they need to succeed. 

These new structures must maximise the benefit of new powers and resources.

What that looks like in practice is up for debate. But we should never be afraid of having a mature and informed conversation about how best to make sure the UK and its capital thrives for decades to come.

In July Kemi Badenoch made a speech, whilst Nigel Farage battled a bin in Clacton and Andy Burnham, having dispatched Kier Starmer to a bin in Westminster, figured out how to be the Mayor of Britain.

While Burnham continues to work on his Tik-Tok game, the clock is running on the mission Badenoch set for the Conservatives:

“We are recruiting serious people who understand common sense, can get stuff done and can unite the country. In the unlikely event that Burnham does call a snap election – and I do not think he will, because turkeys do not vote for Christmas – we will be ready. Since I last wrote in the Telegraph about how we will recruit the next generation of Conservative candidates, we have been deluged with brilliant applications. More than 2,000 people applied, and we will now step up our selection process over the summer as we build a government in waiting.”

I didn’t mention Farage en passant. His post Clacton victory holiday has been rent by squabbling in the top team while he’s away. A lot of the focus has been on the egregious Zia Yusuf the indomitable antedote to charm, a man who has branded himself a “Lethal Election Threat” to the Tories.

For a man who hasn’t been elected to anything but donated his way to a top position in Reform UK, he’s literally gone from ‘buy’ to L.E.T.

He hasn’t stood as a candidate and they turned him down for Runcorn, to plonk for Pochin. She’s not the only former Tory in their ranks-of-former-Tories which brings me back to Badenoch’s mission.

Next week as St Giles day (yes it really is) ushers in the month of September the Conservatives open up the first tranche of constituencies they want to find candidates for and there’s some eye-catching ones, not least in a seat one defector thought better of a by-election at the time of their departure.

So roll up those who are ‘in it to win it’ here’s the first tranche of seats being contested in September and what you need to know.

Newark

Current MP: Robert Jenrick (Reform) majority secured as a Conservative, 3,572. Electorate on 4th July 2024: 79,783. Turnout 67%.

Rob needs no introduction to ConHome readers, as at one point he dominated our reader survey ‘Shadow Cabinet Leadership Table’. We now know around the time of last year’s Conservative Party Conference he’d started talking to Farage via ConHome Founder and until recently Reform member Tim Montgomerie (having left the Conservatives in Dec 2024). Kemi dramatically sacked Jenrick, and on 15th January this year removed his membership after finding “irrefutable evidence” of his plan to defect, which he hastily did some hours later at a press conference with Nigel Farage.

A UK Polling report on 30 June suggested the Conservatives will win Newark at a General Election with 36 per cent of the vote, while Jenrick and Reform will finish second with 27 per cent. This of course is no guarantee. Jenrick is a workaholic, very driven and a good campaigner. The seat will need an equally determined Conservative candidate to beat him, which is surely something CCHQ and Badenoch would cherish.

So far it’s been reported his former friend and County Councillor for Newark East, Sam Smith is interested in delivering that win, he will not be alone though in wanting this one.

Clacton

Current MP: Nigel Farage (Reform) majority secured in by-election (Reform Hold) 13 August 2026 12,784. Electorate on 13 August 2026 79,785. Turnout 44%

As we know the Conservatives, like Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens decided not to stand in a by-election called by Farage and in which he decided to run, so here is the 4th July 2024 result which saw, at the 8th attempt, him finally become an MP; Majority 8,405. Electorate 78,245 Turnout 58.7%.

To unseat Farage would be, quite clearly, a major Tory coup and it is entirely possible that the seat will be fought again, before any General election depending on the outcome of the parliamentary Standards Commissioner’s investigation into the allegation of failing to declare the five million pounds crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne handed over to Farage in the year before he became an MP, as the rules stipulate. Farage maintains the rules do not apply to ‘personal gifts’ and he was advised of this at the time he became an MP.  He has subsequently dismissed the process as a political attack on Reform, suggesting it’s not such a big problem if he ‘failed to sign some piece of paper’.

So the Tories may have included Clacton in this first tranche to be ready for by-election v2.0 as well as the next General Election

Previous MP for Clacton former actor (now acting again by the way) Giles Watling, 73, lost in 2024 but despite suggesting he’d be prepared to have run in the last by-election, and having had a personal core popularity in the seat – more a victim of the brand rout, than a rejection of him – it’s not clear if he’d be looking to run at a GE again. And – and maybe it shouldn’t be – age might play a factor in that for the local Tories.

The seat will be a fight, but it’d be a high profile one for whoever takes it on.

South West Norfolk 

Current MP: Terry Lamb (Labour) Majority 630. Electorate 74,724. Turnout 59.3%

So who wants to be the inheritor of Liz Truss? Yes this is the seat she lost in 2024. A second blow after having been elected and then rejected in the shortest premiership of modern times, just 49 days as Prime Minister. There was a time when Truss was hugely popular with the membership, she beat Rishi Sunak to the leadership, and she had been a prominent cabinet minister for some time. Word was in the FCDO that half her team worked on Foreign Affairs and the other half worked on her leadership campaign which started a long time before the official one. Well the campaign to win it back starts soon, and it will be hard. Labour hold the seat but Reform did very well in the local elections in Norfolk in May, and the best can be accurately said of the Conservative performance was that it was not nearly as bad as predicted, but still bad. Terry Lamb however sits on just a 630 majority. Speaking of majorities…

Hendon

Current MP: David Pinto-Duschinsky (Labour) Majority 15 Electorate 74,865 Turnout 55.1%

It was Ameet Joggia who fought the General Election in 2024 and in a way became a casualty of the new political reality we have. Pinto-Dushinsky wins for Labour with a majority of just 15 votes, on 15,855 Joggia got 15,840. Third was Reform UK’s Joshua Pearl on 3038, more than enough had it been a straight Tory-Labour fight to give Joggia the seat. But that’s not how things are so the new Conservative Candidate will as in many of these cases have to fight on two fronts, but Hendon is clearly one the Tories feel they could claw back.

David Pinto-Duschinsky is the son of right leaning legal and constitutional expert Michael Pinto-Ducshinsky connected to Policy Exchange and a member in 2011–12, of the Commission on a Bill of Rights set up by the UK Coalition Government in 2010 to advise on reform of the 1998 Human Rights Act. In March 2012, he resigned live on TV after complaining that his views were being ignored.

David is a PPS in the Department for Work and Pensions, both under Starmer and Burnham popped up in a Parliamentary debate to clash with Conservative Esther McVey over her bill for mandatory labelling of halal and kosher meat.

Chelsea and Fulham

Current MP: Ben Coleman (Labour) Majority 152. Electorate 78,468 Turnout 60%.

Former Conservative Greg Hands, a former party Chairman in 2023, a Minister for London (might he fancy running for Mayor?) and a Minister for Trade Policy lost the seat in 2024. To take this one on, one suspects a knowledge of bridges, and the closure of one, will be important. The Liberal Democrats came third in this seat in 2024, but on not so much more than Reform. Again Ben Coleman’s majority is small. He declined to stand down as a councillor in Hammersmith and Fulham at first but did subsequently relinquish that role.

Ribble Valley

Current MP: Maya Ellis (Labour) Majority 856. Electorate 80,484 Turnout 64.6%

Former Conservative MP Nigel Evans, a deputy Speaker will tell anyone that he positively lived for Parliament and being an MP. Here’s another seat where the Reform vote counted. Evans losing by 856 votes, where Reform got 8524. this Nigel has not announced he’s standing again though we are aware friends and colleagues urged him to get back on the list. It’s a a beautiful part of the country so there’s that for anyone wanting to be the candidate, but it’ll be the less pretty realities of today’s political landscape that any new candidate will have to navigate here.

Aylesbury

Maidstone & Malling

Current MP: Helen Grant (Conservative) Majority 1,674 Electorate 76,449. Turnout 60.7%

This is a seat the Conservatives won in 2024. The majority is smaller than you’d like but it’s Tory. Labour were the second challanger and Reform third but short with over a 4k margin from Helen Grant MP who won it. Helen is the shadow Solicitor General and announced in July she’d stand down after 19 years as an MP (our own ConHome columnist Matthew Jeffery can be spotted in the photo) She’ll go at the next election, saying that despite being well, a fight with cancer had made her decide now was the time to ‘pass on the baton‘. She referred to the time she’d had as a candidate to bed into the seat when her predecessor, one Anne Widdecombe, announced she’d be stepping down. That run up time for whoever the Tories pick next could be about the same if an election is in 2028/9. The fact this was Anne Widdecombe’s old seat and the ghastly circumstances around her death, may make this a seat Reform would dearly like to take, but she was a Conservative longer than she was anything else, and as I grew up in this constituency, knowing Anne from my teens, I’ll be watching this one with an added interest.

Poole

Current MP: Neil Duncan-Jordan (Labour)  Majority 18 Electorate 72,509. Turnout 61.4%

Robert Syms was the Conservative MP for Poole, an MP since 1997 winning despite the Blair landslide of that year. He spent time in the Treasury and as a whip. The majority in 2024 of just 18 was accepted only after a number of recounts. Again Syms was close to winning with is 14,150 but Reform were third with 7429. Poole was also a symbol of the scale of defeat in 2024 for the party overall, Syms seeing a drop of 27% from 2019 result where his majority was 19,116. Again the Tories think they could get this one back and want someone in soon who can start the work of trying to do so.

And

Redditch

Current MP: Chris Bloore (Labour) Majority 789. Electorate 71,042. Turnout 59.6%

Rachel McLean, friend and colleague to Kemi Badenoch, is now in the Lords, but here she lost the seat she’d won in 2017, holding the seat vacated by Karen Lumley, fondly remembered by me as one of the first Tory MP’s I got to know well. We lost Karen on 25 May 2023, at the age of 59. She fought Redditch twice unsuccessfully before defeating a sitting Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in 2010.  Rachel has not left politics by any means, and is an active Tory member of the Lords, and supports Badenoch’s leadership though no longer her Strategy Director, after a reshuffle of the team last summer.

Redditch has swapped hands and is one of those seats that if it can be taken from Labour’s Chris Bloore, is one of theose seats the media look at for an indication of the scale of a revival in a party’s fortunes. The seat has people who work at Jaguar Land Rover but the Tories are looking for a tiger to take it back.

ConservativeHome will take a look at the October tranche in late September.

Matthew Jeffery is an experienced global talent and recruitment leader, with more than 25 years advising boards and C-suite executives on workforce strategy, skills, and productivity.

Conservatives are making a political mistake.

We are handing millions of working people to Labour simply because they carry a union card. These voters are not our enemies. Many should be natural Conservatives and millions could become Conservative voters. Yet for 40 years we have behaved as though Labour owns them and barely bothered to ask for their support. That surrender should end now.

Thatcher was right to take on union power when it threatened democratic government. She won that battle. But winning yesterday’s battle is not an excuse for fighting it forever. The closed shop is gone, Arthur Scargill is history and Britain has changed. Too much Conservative thinking about trade unions remains frozen in an argument we already won.

Look at who carries a union card today. Nurses coming off twelve-hour shifts. Engineers buried in compliance paperwork. Teaching assistants buying classroom supplies with their own money. Warehouse workers who have calculated exactly how far their pay packet will stretch. These are not militants plotting the downfall of capitalism. They are working people trying to get on and millions should be natural Conservative voters.

Labour behaves as though their votes come automatically with their union subscriptions. Why should they? A union card is not a Labour vote. These voters do not belong to Labour. Their support has to be earned and it is time Conservatives went out and earned it.

The New Monopoly Is Knowledge

For most of the 20th century, politics was a struggle between capital, labour and the state. But Britain has changed and power has changed with it. The great monopoly of the 21st century is knowledge.

Britain is drowning in information while millions struggle to make sense of it. Employment law, pensions, taxation and regulation have become so complicated that people increasingly depend on institutions to interpret their own lives. Government understands the legislation. Regulators understand the rules. Banks understand the finance. Trade unions understand employment law. The individual is expected to trust them all.

Take a nurse handed a hundred-page pay settlement covering her salary, pension, overtime and working conditions. She can sacrifice her weekend deciphering it or trust someone else to tell her what it means. The institution understands the detail, frames the choices and recommends the answer. The individual lives with the consequences.

Expertise is essential. Dependency is not. When complexity prevents people from challenging decisions governing their money, work and future, knowledge becomes power. Choice without understanding is a pretty thin version of freedom.

Conservatives have always challenged concentrated power. The new monopoly is not sitting on a picket line or behind a factory gate. It is buried in the contracts, regulations, algorithms and small print governing modern life. The next great political battle will not be capital versus labour. It will be institutions versus individuals.

Artificial Intelligence Can Put Power Back in the Hands of Workers

Previous Conservative revolutions dispersed power through ownership. Home ownership, share ownership and secret ballots all gave individuals greater independence. AI offers the next great dispersal of power. This time, it is knowledge.

Most politicians talk about AI as something that will happen to workers. Conservatives should talk about what it can do for them.

The internet gave people access to information. AI gives them the ability to interrogate it. A worker could finally answer a question that really matters: am I getting a fair deal? They could compare their salary with similar jobs across Britain, discover what their skills are worth in another industry, understand their pension and see whether a qualification or change of employer could leave their family thousands of pounds better off. Instead of being told what their labour is worth, they could find out for themselves.

Now take that power into the negotiating room. When an employer says there is no money for a better settlement, workers should be able to test the claim. What happened to turnover, profits and margins? What are competitors paying? What happened to executive pay? For too long, negotiations have rewarded whoever arrives armed with the most expertise. AI can start levelling the table. If the company can afford more, workers should know. If the business genuinely cannot, they should know that too. The point is not to rig the argument for either side. It is to make bluffing harder for both.

Labour’s historic answer to worker power has been to strengthen the people who represent them. Ours should be to strengthen the person being represented. We should not tell union members to tear up their cards or surrender collective bargaining. We should give them the tools to challenge their employer, challenge their union and, when necessary, challenge both.

Do not replace the individual with the machine. Arm the individual with it. Give millions of workers access to knowledge once reserved for lawyers, accountants, officials and specialists, then trust them to decide what is best for themselves.

The Capability Society Should Become Conservatism’s Next Big Idea

The ambition should reach far beyond trade unions. A Capability Society would use technology to tear down the walls of expertise that leave ordinary people dependent on institutions to navigate their own lives. The purpose is not to build a smarter state that makes decisions on people’s behalf. It is to create more capable citizens who can make better decisions for themselves. Trade unions are the perfect proving ground for that idea.

Imagine the same principle everywhere. A parent challenging a decision about their child’s education. A small business owner taking on the tax system. A patient interrogating their treatment choices. A saver finally understanding their pension. For too long, complexity has been power. The institution knew. The individual trusted. That relationship can now be broken.

That leaves Conservatives with a defining choice. We can use AI to make the state smarter, bureaucracy stronger and institutions better at managing people. Or we can use it to make individuals harder to control, harder to mislead and harder to ignore. Conservatives should choose the individual.

That is the Capability Society. Not technology used to manage people from above but technology that gives them the power to stand on their own. Not a smarter establishment but a more capable population. This should become the defining Conservative idea of the AI age.

 Why Trade Union Members Have More to Gain from Conservatives Than Labour

Labour has spent generations claiming to be the party of working people. Trade union members are entitled to ask what that loyalty has actually delivered. Forget the conference speeches, union endorsements and warm words from ministers. Are working people richer? Is work more secure? Are opportunities growing? Does the pay packet stretch further? Labour should be judged by the lives of the workers it claims to represent, not the union leaders standing behind it.

Look at the labour market. Unemployment stands at 4.9 per cent. The latest provisional estimate suggests payrolled employment is down 94,000 over the year. Vacancies have fallen to 707,000, the lowest level outside the pandemic since 2014, while real regular pay growth is just 0.5 per cent after inflation. Inflation is heading the wrong way again, climbing from 2.6 to 2.9 per cent in July.  Money is tight, opportunity is shrinking and working people are feeling it.

Labour cannot pretend its own choices have nothing to do with the pressure employers face. Employer National Insurance is now 15 per cent, while the National Living Wage has risen to £12.71 an hour. Add higher employment costs to an expanding burden of regulation and eventually somebody pays. Investment is delayed. Vacancies disappear. Hiring slows. The worker Labour claims to protect ends up carrying the consequences.

Those numbers become painfully real around the kitchen table. A worker feels them when a colleague leaves and is not replaced, overtime disappears, a pay rise barely changes what the family can afford or a decent vacancy suddenly attracts hundreds of applicants. They feel them when the mortgage, energy bill and weekly shop swallow the salary before anything reaches the savings account. Working people do not need politicians telling them whose side they are on. They need an economy that lets them get ahead.

That is the economic argument Conservatives should make. The greatest bargaining power a worker can possess is an economy in which employers have to compete for them. Investment creates jobs. More jobs create choice. Choice gives workers the confidence to demand better pay, leave a bad employer or build a better career elsewhere. Trade unions can negotiate how prosperity is shared but they cannot negotiate prosperity into existence. Without investment, productivity, enterprise and growth, eventually there is nothing left to bargain over.

The dividing line is simple. Labour can point to the institutions that represent working people. Conservatives can make the case for making working people more prosperous. Earn more. Keep more. Have more choices about where you work and what your skills are worth. That is the test on which any party asking for the support of trade union members should be judged.

From Worker Representation to Worker Power

The argument now needs to become policy. Every worker should have the tools to understand their rights, know what their skills are worth and make informed choices about their working life. Three reforms could start putting that power directly into their hands.

1. An AI Digital Shop Steward

Every trade union member should have access to a personal AI workplace adviser that understands their contract, pension, qualifications and employment rights. It could explain agreements in plain English, compare pay across employers and industries and show what different choices could mean for their income and career. Crucially, it should work for the worker, not the employer, the union, the government or the technology company.

2. An AI Negotiation Simulator

No worker should vote on a major agreement without being able to explore the alternatives for themselves. What would a settlement mean for pay, overtime and pension income? What happens if negotiations continue or industrial action succeeds or fails? What can the employer genuinely afford? A ballot should be an informed decision, not an act of faith. Give workers the evidence and let them make up their own minds.

3. Worker Data Trusts

In the industrial age, ownership of capital determined economic power. In the AI age, control of data will increasingly shape it. Workers should control the information generated throughout their careers, with unions acting as trusted custodians rather than owners. Members could voluntarily pool anonymised information on pay, progression, skills and workplace conditions while deciding how their own data is used. That would give each worker the collective intelligence of thousands without surrendering control to anyone else.

None of this works without trust. These tools would need independent oversight, strong privacy protections and transparent auditing. The principle should be non-negotiable: the worker controls their data and decides who can use it. Technology should not create another institution workers are forced to trust. It should give them greater confidence in their own judgement.

The Next Conservative Revolution

History remembers political movements for the future they build, not the battles they keep refighting. Conservatives won the argument about restraining trade union power. The challenge now is to build something new from that victory.

Conservatives should offer working people something bigger: aspiration, prosperity and power over their own lives. Stop seeing the union card and start seeing the person holding it. No party owns these voters. Their support must be earned.

That means leaving the ghosts of the 1970s where they belong. Labour wants their loyalty. Reform wants their anger. Conservatives should fight for their ambition. Give working people a reason to believe that tomorrow can be richer, freer and more firmly in their own hands.

The twentieth century spread ownership. The twenty-first must spread capability. If Conservatives have the courage to lead that revolution, trade union members will not be our enemies. They could become our greatest allies.