Kemi badenoch

Will there be a Tory/Reform pact?

19 min listen

While both Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch are quick to talk down speculation of a pact between the Tories and Reform, listeners may be surprised to hear that around Westminster such conversations are already taking place. With every new poll, Conservative MPs grow a little more anxious that by the time they go to the polls, they will have little claim to being the main opposition – and so some sort of agreement starts to make sense. That agreement could be anything from a non-aggression pact to bringing the two warring parties of the right under one leader. How likely is it? Oscar Edmondson speaks to Katy Balls and Gawain

Have the Tories thought through their immigration policy?

12 min listen

The Bank of England has cut interest rates for the third time since the inflation crisis, taking the base rate to 4.5 per cent. The Monetary Policy Committee voted by seven to two to further reduce rates by 0.25 percentage points – a move that was widely expected by markets, but had been put into doubt after government borrowing costs surged in January and President Donald Trump announced his plans for substantial tariffs last week. Why have the Bank of England decided to cut rates? Also today, Kemi Badenoch has announced some policy! Ahead of the Labour government’s Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill being debated in Parliament next week,

Katy Balls

Could a Tory/Reform pact be looming?

In 1603, James VI managed to do what few thought possible. The self-styled first King of Great Britain succeeded in bringing the ‘auld enemies’ of Scotland and England under one monarch. That union of the crowns is a topic of chatter and inspiration for the British right these days. Admirers of Nigel Farage now talk about the ‘James I model’. The idea is simple: could the two warring tribes of the Conservatives and Reform be brought together under one leader? The next general election may be nearly four years away, but it’s telling that such conversations are already taking place. With every new opinion poll, Conservative MPs grow a little

The Tory party’s wannabe comeback kids

When a prime minister leaves No. 10, they usually discover the phone soon stops ringing. But there is at least a brief window when they are more popular with colleagues than they were in office. Why? The resignation honours list. It is a way to curry favour, settle debts and win back friends. While the thank-you list appears after a premiership is over, it can affect how a leader is remembered. While the honours list appears after a premiership is over, it still affects how a leader is remembered In keeping with her premiership, Liz Truss’s list was short – but it still became the subject of fierce debate in

Letters: Were we deceived by Labour?

Forced Labour Sir: Matthew Parris wonders ‘Why was everyone fooled by Rachel Reeves?’(18 January) and goes on to include Sir Keir Starmer in this question. The former he concludes is ‘an empty vessel’ and the latter ‘bereft of ideas’. By ‘everyone’ he chiefly means the commentariat, although he claims he was not himself misled. They and many others were fed up with the failure of successive Conservative governments, and wanted so badly to believe in Labour’s ability to form an effective administration that they never seriously applied due diligence by questioning its credibility or competences. At no stage were any stones lifted to determine what ‘nasties’ lay underneath. As a

Kemi should prepare for a political pounding

It is extraordinary to remember. When I was a small boy in Scotland, Christmas Day was not a holiday. My father almost closed his office, but someone was on duty. The main festivity was Hogmanay: not a holiday in England. Now the whole country closes down for a fortnight. A friend who is a serious industrialist says that far from afflicting productivity, this is a good thing. After two weeks, apart from those who have gone in search of sun or skiing, most people are fed up with family life. Even the brats cannot wait to get back to school. So his employees return to work with renewed vigour. We started with

Does Kemi Badenoch have a plan?

We are nearing the 50th anniversary, next month, of Margaret Thatcher becoming leader of the Conservative party. Only one other woman has ever become leader while the party was in opposition, and that is Kemi Badenoch. Mrs Badenoch is well aware of the strategy her legendary predecessor pursued between becoming leader of the opposition in 1975 and prime minister in 1979, and is sensibly emulating it: a willingness to include rivals in her shadow administration, and to take her time setting out policies (there is, after all, unlikely to be an election before the spring of 2028, by when anything could happen); but to precede the announcement of specific policies

Is Reform unstoppable?

Lying in bed pissed on Boxing Day night, I was visited by the ghost of Christmas Future, dressed in a grey jacket with a velvet collar, hovering over my pit cackling and in a similar state, alcohol-wise, to myself. It seemed very happy, this ghost. It led me to a graveyard where it pointed, in jubilation, at a headstone which had the words ‘Kemi Badenoch 2024-2026’ on it. ‘You shouldn’t joke about people passing away, Nigel,’ I told this phantom a little sententiously. ‘She’s not actually dead, you idiot,’ replied the wraith, lighting a fag. ‘It’s a metaphor.’ When I awoke 12 hours later, my mobile phone flashed a message

Toby Young

Can I be cancelled twice?

One of the biggest regrets of my life was saying yes when Jo Johnson asked if I wanted to be on the board of the Office for Students (OfS) in the autumn of 2017. It wasn’t a particularly prestigious position: the OfS was to be a new regulator of higher education in England and I would be one of 15 non-executive directors. But because it was a public appointment it would be made by the prime minister, which meant I was a political target. When it was announced on 1 January 2018, the offence archaeologists went to work, sifting through everything I’d said or written dating back 30 years in

Have we been too quick to judge Kemi Badenoch?

20 min listen

Kemi Badenoch is just over a month into her tenure as leader of the opposition, and already she has been criticised for her performances at PMQs and for failing to offer much in the way of policy proposals. It has been a consistent gripe of many of Badenoch’s detractors that she is a culture warrior or a one-trick pony. However, we might get a better idea of what the Conservatives will look like in the new year once her series of policy commissions get under way. So, how will she position her party? And, as countries around the world turn rightward, can she wrestle herself into conversations with Trump and

Labour vs the NIMBYs, plus are sandwiches ‘for wimps’?

16 min listen

Today Downing Street has continued its reset – that is definitely not a reset – by providing more details on Labour’s plan to cut the planning red tape and deliver a housing revolution. Their target is to build one and a half million new homes over the next five years by building on green belt land and giving councils mandatory targets. This has predictably been met with robust opposition from several groups who are concerned about the plan, which involves building on a green belt area the size of Surrey. Can Labour win its battle against the so-called NIMBYs (not in my backyard)? In other news, it is publication day

‘I will die protecting this country’: Kemi Badenoch on where she plans to take the Tories

‘It’s like a start-up,’ Kemi Badenoch explains of her new job, as she plumps down on a sofa in the Spectator offices. A month into her tenure as Conservative party leader and she is discovering the upsides to being out of power. ‘Everyone around me in the leader of the opposition office is there because of me – not because they happened to be there when I got there. That changes the dynamic quite a bit.’ ‘What’s a lunch break? Lunch is for wimps. I don’t think sandwiches are a real food’ She says the ‘biggest difference’ so far between being a secretary of state and leader of the opposition

Kneecap are basic but thrilling

It was Irish week in London, with one group from the north and one from the south. Guinness was sold in unusual amounts; green football shirts were plentiful; and so, at both shows, was a genuinesense of joyful triumph – these were the biggest London venues either group had headlined. The Irishness was much more visible onstage at Kneecap, not least because, as a proudly Republican group, they can’t really not make a big deal of being from west Belfast. Their statements have prompted the inevitable fury from some quarters: Kemi Badenoch (as business secretary) refused them a £15,000 grant to help them tour, on the grounds that the British

What Kemi Badenoch can learn from her enemies

Kemi Badenoch, in an act of unusual awareness for an MP, intends to learn from her own party’s mistakes as well as Labour’s. She must have been reading the Greek statesman Plutarch’s ‘How to profit from your enemies’, one of his 78 essays and dialogues on a wide range of topics, from the intelligence of animals to old men in politics. Politics, he said, always encouraged spite, envy, and rivalry. These encouraged the wise man ‘to stay on guard, do everything with due care and attention, and lead a more mindful life’. The reason he gave for this was that there was a weakness in us that made us ‘feel

I listened to a solid week of Woman’s Hour…

I was a weird kid, and though I harboured the usual innocent girlish ambitions of being a drug fiend and having sex with pop stars, I also nursed a desire to appear on Woman’s Hour. As a shy, provincial virgin, the programme opened up a world of women’s troubles from anorexia to zuigerphobia – and I was keen to have A Complicated Life. Here was the wet hand of today’s lily-livered sensibilities I had anticipated From my twenties to my fifties I appeared on it several times; my last outing was in 2016, as – like most other institutions – it was captured by the trans cult, leading to the

Inside Kemi Badenoch’s first shadow cabinet

At her first shadow cabinet as Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch walked into the room and declared that there were ‘still too many people’. Various advisers hastily left. It was an indication of how she plans to do things differently. Even the invitation list for politicians has been slimmed down – the shadow attorney will not attend, and some roles have been axed, such as deputy leader. No ‘readout’ of discussion topics was emailed to hacks afterwards to update the lobby on what happened. Kemi Badenoch can start off her leadership by pitching herself ason the same side as rural voters The reason? Badenoch wants shadow cabinet meetings to be a

Portrait of the week: Trump’s victory, Kemi’s shadow cabinet and footballer killed by lightning

Home Kemi Badenoch, the new leader of the Conservative party, appointed a shadow cabinet. She made Robert Jenrick, whom she beat for the leadership, shadow justice secretary; Dame Priti Patel, shadow foreign secretary; Chris Philp, shadow home secretary; Mel Stride, shadow chancellor. Alex Burghart was given Northern Ireland and the Cabinet Office, with Laura Trott at education, Edward Argar at health and James Cartlidge at defence. Badenoch had been elected leader by 56.5 per cent of the 95,194 members’ votes (compared with the 57.4 per cent for Liz Truss in 2022), in a turnout of 72.8 per cent (compared with the 82.2 per cent in 2022). The Pitt Rivers museum

Has Kemi Badenoch formed a unity cabinet?

14 min listen

Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet continues to take shape: Chris Philp has been appointed shadow Home Secretary, with the biggest news being Robert Jenrick’s decision to accept the position of shadow Justice Secretary. Jenrick’s proposal to leave the ECHR was one policy disagreement with Badenoch, could this cause the Conservatives problems in the future? And what do her appointments say more broadly about her programme: has she put party unity above policy? Oscar Edmondson speaks to Katy Balls and the FT’s Stephen Bush. Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.

Who will make up Kemi’s shadow cabinet?

12 min listen

Kemi Badenoch is the new leader of the opposition, and we have an early indication of who will make up her shadow cabinet. She has already chosen her chief whip in loyalist Rebecca Harris; Nigel Huddleston and Dominic Johnson will be party chairman; Laura Trott will be shadow education secretary; Neil O’Brien will be shadow minister for education – crucially, a Jenrick backer. Is she going for party unity? Who will take the top jobs in team Badenoch? Also on the podcast, it’s anything-but-the-budget-week for Labour, who are trying to move the agenda along from last week’s fiscal event with a raft of announcements. Today, the prime minister unveiled his

Badenoch must explain why the Tories deserve power

Kemi Badenoch’s victory was not overwhelming. Her margin of victory was smaller than of any of her Tory predecessors since the current leadership rules were introduced. With the support of 57 per cent of the membership and a third of MPs – similar proportions to what Liz Truss managed in 2022 – her immediate task will be to unite her querulous parliamentary party and reach out to her opponents. Her finishing cry – ‘It’s time to get down to business, it’s time to renew’ – is familiar from the campaign trail. The most immediate task is building a shadow cabinet. James Cleverly’s choice to go to the backbenches frees a space but