Chris Mason: Can Sunak's switch from Mr Steady to Mr Change work?

There are five words that get to the crux of the challenge for the Conservative Party.

The diminishing returns of reinvention.

This autumn, Rishi Sunak has changed tack.

Gone is the Mr Steady As He Goes. The guy who came in to settle things down after all the turbulence of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.

Instead, Mr Sunak is now portraying himself as Mr Change: the guy who wants to get things done and is willing to point to the failings, as he sees them, of the governments that came before, including ones he served in.

Last night I bumped into a cabinet minister in a lift.

"I like this change. It's punchy. It has raised the mood here. Will it work? Who knows?" they said.

In other words, it is worth a go, but when you are the fifth prime minister of a 13 year run in office, those diminishing returns are never far away.

But, but, but: the contrast with a year ago is worth acknowledging.

Another senior minister reminds me that it is 12 months ago since they were pivotal in bringing down Liz Truss when the party gathered in Birmingham in October 2023.

Last year's party conference was like a firework display where all the bangers and rockets went off all at once.

This year is - up to a point - more conventional political pyrotechnics.

The biggest issue of the lot will dominate on Monday: The economy.

The Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, will give his speech.

Ministers point to revised data from the Office for National Statistics, which suggest the economy grew faster since the start of the pandemic than initially thought.

But they also acknowledge that it is how an economy feels, as well as the numbers in a spreadsheet, that really matters - and things have been difficult for many for a long time.

Any sense of improvement matters, for peoples day-to-day lives, but matters too in shaping when the prime minister might be tempted to call a general election.

Oh and one other thing, that stretches, at least a little, that idea of the return of the conventional.

Liz Truss turns up here later.

Quite the spectacle: the person who was prime minister a year ago rolling up to say the current prime minister is getting it all wrong.

She will say the best way to get the economy growing again is cutting business taxes, fracking and building more houses more quickly.

Mr Hunt is dismissing her prospectus.

For years before becoming prime minister, Boris Johnson did his Prince over the Water act at party conference, swooping in to delight many activists, who anticipated how things might be if he had the top job.

Now it's Liz Truss - who, remember, was more popular than Rishi Sunak among Conservative Party members - who appears as the (former) Queen over the Water, alongside allies such as Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Dame Priti Patel.

How she is received - and by how many - will be fascinating.