News Summary

• Leader Kemi Badenoch will focus on the economy at her party's annual conference.
• Welfare spending is increasingly seen by the Conservatives as a core battleground with Labour.
• The Conservatives hope the sharpening left-right split leaves Reform UK in a strategic bind, occupying a less obvious place on that spectrum.
• A year ago some senior Conservatives feared being usurped by Reform as the leading party of the right was a near-inevitability.
• Now they are optimistic that Nigel Farage's party is on an inexorable slide.