Prior to Kemi Badenoch’s arrival the Conservative party played us recordings of her voice piped over dramatic lift muzak. Conference seasons are always bizarre – gatherings as they are of remarkable sub-species of people who look at British politics and think ‘wow, that’s exciting’ rather than ‘oh God, what now’ (and I include myself in this category). It isn’t showbusiness for ugly people, it’s trainspotting for maniacs. Yet by the standards of conference weirdness, the soundtrack aside, Mrs Badenoch was, well, quite normal.
As she arrived on stage in person she seemed genuinely surprised by the warmth of the welcome. Her ‘thank you conference’ was uttered in the tone of someone taken aback by a group of friends jumping out from behind a sofa to wish them happy birthday. Even more surprised, I suspect, were some viewers – surprised by the fact that Mrs Badenoch delivered a first-rate speech.
She hit Labour where they needed hitting – ‘our weak, useless Prime Minister’ – she gained cheers for listing all the people she was in politics for, farmers, small business owners, parents who want better for their children – ‘these’ she said ‘are our people’. She correctly identified the main problems facing the country and repeated them again and again: the economy and borders. Numerous ministers were singled out for praise, even and especially her own personal Fortinbras-Burnham mash-up. Robert Jenrick was praised for stopping ‘more fare evaders than Transport for London.’
Apart from anything else, this was also an audition for the Conservative party’s continued existence. Ms Badenoch delivered a potted history of Toryism’s achievements throughout the centuries – notably not allowing that history to start and finish with Mrs Thatcher, in a conference accused of dwelling too much on the Iron Lady in her centenary year. She spoke of Disraeli’s franchise extension and inverted Winston Churchill’s line to describe Sir Keir and his cabinet of goons: ‘Never in the field of human history have so many been let down by so few.’
There were even some gags, albeit rather depressing ones at the state of the nation’s expense: ‘While Britain was defining what a woman is’, she observed, ‘China built five new nuclear power stations.’ Presumably the trans lobby thinks we can heat the country by burning Harry Potter books. The main downside was what wasn’t mentioned. Personally, I’d have liked a firm pledge to send Jonathan Powell to the Tower of London on high treason charges, but you can’t have everything.
Yet for all the success of the speech, there was still a morbidity in the room. Tory conference this year felt like the waiting room of a Viennese funeral parlour: polite, formal, decked with past glories and with the ominous stench of death.
Badenoch’s plan will doubtless be unpalatable to the public
The fact is that it isn’t the ever-shrinking cadre of Tory faithful that Mrs Badenoch needs to persuade, but the voters who left for Labour last time and seem certain to flock to Reform next time. For all that this conference will have provided a much needed internal morale boost, she is still between the Devil and the Deep Turquoise Sea.
Her diagnosis might be absolutely bang on but two problems face Mrs Badenoch. Firstly, very few people trust the Tories to sort out the mess, instead looking back at the last 14 years and quite reasonably noticing that the people involved in failing to stop the country’s decline were generally wearing blue rosettes. The Tories are in a difficult position here: as if the person who has just cut your thumb off comes over and says: ‘actually I’m a pretty dab hand with a sewing kit, why not let me have a go putting it back on?’
Secondly, and perhaps even more intractable, is the British public’s jam addiction. They want it today, tomorrow and forever. Mrs Badenoch’s treatment plan will doubtless be unpalatable to the public, just as Mr Sunak’s was, and so they delivered a landslide to people who shouldn’t be allowed to run a soft play centre, let alone a major economy, on the basis that they liked the sound of the lies they were told. Therein lies the quandary of modern British politics. Mrs Badenoch isn’t its first victim, nor will she be its last.
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