Kemi Badenoch has had a good year. That sounds controversial, but the expectation was that she would be gone at the end of the year, or at least be in the ejector seat.
The Tories are notoriously ruthless when it comes to removing leaders. In October it seemed that Badenoch’s days were numbered; her team was despondent. Robert Jenrick seemed like a king over the water, waiting for an open invitation to waltz back in and take a crown that many felt was rightfully his.
But none of this happened. Badenoch has partially confounded her critics with more confident performances in the House of Commons and in the media more generally.
Much of her improvement, it must be said, is attributable to the fact that expectations were pitifully low. Nobody expected her to do anything.
My view has always been that anybody who took over the Tories in 2024 would have struggled to make an impact. After 14 years in government, the Tories looked tired and ready to move on.
The election gave the party its worst defeat in its history. Any leader, even one with the charisma of Winston Churchill or the drive of Margaret Thatcher, would have struggled. On the day after the election, it seemed inevitable that Labour would govern for two full terms, given the size of their majority.
A mere 18 months later, the picture could not be more different. The party in Government is polling consistently below 20 per cent, with the Greens polling around 15 per cent. Only the abysmal organisation of Jeremy Corbyn’s “Your Party” is preventing Labour from plumbing even greater depths.
Against a backdrop of the Government losing support and Reform stalling as the focus shifts more towards economic issues, Kemi has an opportunity.
It’s only the thinnest chink of light. It could easily be obscured by an outbreak of the customary Tory infighting at any moment. But for now, at least, Kemi has silenced the murmurs of internal discontent.
Her team points to a number of developments which have built her confidence in the last few months. The demise of Angela Rayner was viewed as a particular success. The Tories had been gunning for her in this issue, given her harrying of the embattled Nadhim Zahawi in a similar case of not paying taxes.
Yes, the sums involved in the Zahawi case were much greater, but the principle was the same. Namely, senior cabinet members not being straight with the taxman.
The second good result for Kemi was the implosion of Peter Mandelson, who displayed Icarus levels of a lack of self-awareness in not realising that his position was utterly untenable.
Thirdly, the view was that Kemi performed well in her response to the recent Budget. From a parliamentary point of view, the Leader of the Opposition’s response to the Budget is one of the most arduous challenges of all. It was particularly difficult in the days when Budgets weren’t leaked in their entirety ahead of the event. Today that has all changed, but the way in which Kemi turned Rachel Reeves’s identity politics against the Chancellor was deemed to be successful by Tories.
Reeves had openly said she did not like “mansplaining”. She has drawn attention to her gender repeatedly in her tenure of No 11. Kemi retorted, speaking “woman to woman”, that Reeves was incompetent. People thought her a little rough and impolite, but such is the House of Commons.
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After these successes, the Tories are now essentially drawing level with the Labour Government in the polls. The view around the Tory leader is that she has to get out more and be more visible in the media and in the public eye more generally. This is more difficult than it sounds in an age of five- or six-party politics, and so long as the media maintains its obsession with Nigel Farage.
There is still a very long way to go. Next May’s local elections will be a test of nerve for both the Labour and Conservative parties. The results could well be prelude to a regicidal summer, full of intrigue and betrayal on all sides.
Going into 2026, however, Kemi’s team will be thankful that the usual Tory impulses to decapitate the leader have been, for the time being at least, largely subdued.
Kwasi Kwarteng served as chancellor between September and October 2022 under Liz Truss.
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