Roll up for Liz Truss's British CPAC conference - and get VIP access for just £10,000

When, in March, it was announced that Liz Truss had been chosen by the US Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) to lead their UK version of the event, Nigel Farage was unequivocal: he wasn’t going.

Farage, never one normally to snub a conference of US conservatives, immediately passed, with a Reform spokesman saying: “We will be steering well clear of it.” The toxicity of Truss, who has been blackballed from joining Reform, was thought to be the reason.

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Something, though, has changed, with Farage posting this weekend that “I look forward to making a keynote speech at @CPAC Great Britain later in the summer.” His mind is said to have been changed not just by an enormous wad of cash and by the promise of more lucrative appearances at the US versions of the event, but by the quality of those also on the bill at what is humbly billed as “the most influential gathering of conservatives in the world”.

Formally confirmed to speak, apart from Truss herself, are Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former Cabinet minister who now describes himself as a “Somerset quail farmer” and Toby Young, the Tory life peer who runs a free speech organisation funded by prominent Brexit campaigners and donors to Tufton Street think tanks linked to Truss’s mayfly-like premiership.

There’s also Mike Graham, the right wing blowhard who thinks concrete can be grown and left TalkRadio last year in a row over social media posts, and Matt Goodwin, the former academic turned hard right rabble-rouser who lost the Gorton and Denton by-election for Reform earlier this year after running one of the most inept campaigns in political history, until Robert Kenyon’s.

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Plus there’s Allison Pearson, the increasingly crackers Telegraph columnist, Dan Wootton, sacked from GB News after cackling at sexist comments, and Harry Cole, the former Sun political editor who now hosts its little-watched YouTube politics show.

Then there’s the big name: Lucy Connolly, billed on CPAC’s website as a “free speech campaigner”, but who you might know better as a criminal imprisoned for calling for people to set fire to hotels housing asylum seekers.

What a line-up! And how much will all this cost the punter? Tickets start at £100 for general admission, rising to £5,000 for a “silver” ticket getting you access to a welcome drinks reception and the VIP lounge, and a mere £10,000 if you also want the “gold” ticket allowing you into the “CPAC Great Britain Star Lounge”. What an absolute snip!