It is a year of two major anniversaries for the Tories. The first is the centenary of Margaret Thatcher’s birth; the second is the half-centenary since she was elected leader. To mark the occasion, the think-tank Policy Exchange is laying on a series of events to commemorate the Iron Lady. Today’s was a sit down interview between Thatcher’s biographer, Charles Moore, and Kemi Badenoch, one of Thatcher’s successors.
The conversation between the pair was an engaging one, aimed at highlighting Badenoch’s ability to grasp the major issues of our time. Some of her remarks were punchy: like her suggestion that the UK ‘is being cut out of intelligence’ on the Iran crisis ‘because we cannot be trusted’. Others were familiar: her insistence that Reform is ‘not serious… somebody has to be the adult in the room. We are the adults in the room, and sometimes it is not popular to be the adults in the room.’
There was a hint of policy too. Badenoch confirmed she ‘had looked at’ Denmark’s so-called ‘ghetto laws’, under which social housing areas with high levels of deprivation and a ‘non-Western’ population above 50 per cent are declared ‘parallel societies’. She said she wanted something ‘along the lines’ of this policy, noting the disparities in population ‘and so many other things that would require adjustments, but that sort of thing, yes.’ Much of it was good, sensible stuff for the various attendees nodding along in the think-tank’s headquarters.
But the question is: was anyone listening? The room might have been crammed been full of dozens of the great-and-the-good of the British right. Yet online, the likes of GB News, Daily Express and Policy Exchange struggled to get more than 40 viewers on their respective live streams. Lord Moore made a good point when comparing Badenoch’s leadership to the early days of her predecessor. Back then, in 1978, Thatcher only had to say one word on migration – ‘swamped’ – and the polls began to move in her favour. Now, with Reform on the right, the bar for cut-through has risen much higher.
Given the current pace of politics, it will be interesting tomorrow to compare the coverage of this event to that afforded to Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick’s speeches today. Badenoch and her team believe that, ultimately, their patience will be rewarded. They point to her record in being proved right on self-ID and Kneecap’s funding in government; her victories in opposition by forcing Labour to U-turn on winter fuel and an inquiry into grooming gangs inquiry.
Yet to seize back power after a record defeat, she will need to not merely show that the Tories are not merely the adults in the room – but ones worth listening to as well.
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