Kemi Badenoch is still the best the Tories have got
Kemi Badenoch’s listless leadership is still better than a divisive alternative like Robert Jenrick or James Cleverly, says Will Cooling
It’s just over a year since Nigel Farage re-entered frontline politics. What started as an inevitable defeat for the Conservative party in Clacton has become an existential rout.
After they slumped to their worst election defeat in the modern era, it was no surprise to see the Tories turn to Kemi Badenoch as the woman to lead them back into power. She was no outsider like left-wing insurgents George Lansbury or Jeremy Corbyn, having been a conventional minister under three Prime Ministers. She had clearly been preparing for the post-defeat leadership election, having impressed in her first run for the role in 2022. Indeed, she had tipped for success before becoming a MP, having impressed many within the party with not just the ideological spin she put on her London-to-Lagos-to-London life story and the engaging charm with which she told the story.
Badenoch has shown signs of genuine steel during her rise. She led a group of junior ministers to resign from Boris Johnson’s government when it became clear he was contemplating provoking a constitutional crisis to cling onto power; successfully faced down backbench Brexit-ultras to rollover EU regulations and was the first leading Tory to make clear that Frank Hester’s comments about Diane Abbott were racist.
Less energetic than Corbyn
And yet since the election it’s as if we’re dealing with a completely different politician. She has been a lethargic and listless leader, with her poor performances at Prime Minister’s Questions as nothing compared to her failure to grab the party organisation by the scruff of its neck. Even William Hague and Jeremy Corbyn managed to restore some energy and solvency to party headquarters even while struggling with other aspects of the job.
And yet, as polling commentator Matt Pack observed last week, she still has a better net approval figure than the overall party in most polls. And that makes sense because the Tory Party is caught in a pincer movement between Reform on the right and the Lib Dems left. Badenoch really is the only plausible leader who can placate both sides of the party’s support, with her rivals like James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick likely to divide the party on ideological lines.
From the moment she made her maiden speech in 2017, Badenoch was praised by commentators for knowing how to make Tories feel good about themselves. That makes her depressing leadership all the more confounding
Of course maybe such division would be better than being united in despair. The real danger for the Tories is that another year of drift invites further decay as volunteers, funders and councillors defect to other parties. From the moment she made her maiden speech in 2017, Badenoch was praised by commentators for knowing how to make Tories feel good about themselves. That makes her depressing leadership all the more confounding. She needs to dig deep to find the vibrancy that made her a rising star before she finds herself joining Liz Truss in premature retirement.
Will Cooling writes about politics and pop culture at It Could be Said Substack