One stock
seems truly doomed this week: if you hold any Kemi Badenoch, accept my
condolences
Marina Hyde
Hard to know
if her leadership is sheer ineptitude or an act of artistic expression. This
week, humiliated by Nigel Farage. Next week, who can tell?
Fri 11 Apr
2025 12.35 BST
It’s
intriguing to watch the Conservative party treating next month’s local
elections in England like a movie in which it has a secret cameo. Please don’t
spoil the surprise for the fans! But yes – it turns out it is actually in this
film. Who knew? For all of Labour’s many upsets since it came to power, it
doesn’t feel as though a single one has been skilfully turned in the Tories’
favour. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is very, very bad – so bad that you
can’t even be bothered to come up with anything other than a will-this-do
nickname for her. Kemi Very Badenoch.
More often
than not since KVB beat Robert Jenrick in the leadership equivalent of
Argentina v West Germany, she has seemed to be running the party like a
performance art project you really wouldn’t want to see. Sorry – that’s
obviously a tautology. We can just say “like a performance art project”. For
almost six months now, Badenoch has made a huge deal of the fact that she quite
deliberately doesn’t have any policies, instead repeatedly promising the
“biggest policy renewal programme in 50 years”. Given what minuscule amount has
actually emerged, I’m afraid my ears can now only rearrange that declaration
into “I will come up with some polices in about 50 years”.
Instead of
policies, Badenoch has bandwagons, whose drivers regard her as an unwanted
ride-hitcher. She’s sort of hiding in the bike rack of the bandwagon, or
possibly beneath the bandwagon, clinging on to its chassis. Eventually, her
presence becomes detected, and those pushing for new or different grooming gang
inquiries note she’s suddenly noisily on board. Which is odd, considering that
Rishi Sunak’s government could only be arsed to implement only a very few of
the last inquiry’s recommendations – and that the role of women and equalities
minister in that government was held by one Kemi Badenoch.
But leaving
aside her policy (singular?) for a while, this week Very Badenoch could be
found on the airwaves declaring that the Tories were open to making deals with
Reform UK on local councils. “I have categorically said that I’m not doing
deals with Reform,” she said, going on to effectively list several examples of
ways the Tories could do deals with Reform at local level. What has brought on
this logical collapse? According to Kemi: “When someone says they want to
destroy you, you don’t invite them into your house and ask to do a deal.” But
also you sometimes do, because: “You don’t get to have a rerun of an election
at a local level.” Do you get to have reruns of elections at a national level?
If not, what is she on about? AGAIN?
This is a
rhetorical inquiry that appeared to be shared by Nigel Farage, who lost no time
in playing a similar hand rather better. Farage won’t do a deal, until he will,
but unlike Badenoch he did remember that what you’re supposed to do when asked
these types of questions is explain why the other lot would be an absolutely
terrible choice to vote for.
But look,
Badenoch has other idiosyncratic ways of rallying her troops, launching her
party’s local elections campaign on Thursday by explaining to members that if
you map the 2024 general election results on to the local council seats being
contested, “we lose almost every single one”. Thanks for dialling in,
Braveheart. Thus far, the sole point Kemi seems to have taken in the campaign
is down to BBC Breakfast’s ludicrous decision to try to shame her for not
having watched Adolescence – a crime that is fast becoming on a par with not
having cried in the street when Princess Di died. That said, back in real life,
we can scientifically estimate that her Adolescence retort is worth about a
0.0001% swing in Broxtowe.
Alas, away
from her safe space – minor culture-war skirmishes and posting on X – Badenoch
tends to come off as incredibly poorly prepared, given to relying on a set of
about four assumptions in the absence of that preparation, and consequently can
only be regarded as terminally out of her depth.
This may
well be the conclusion of various donors, with a Times story on Thursday
ascribing a drop in donations to the Conservatives to concerns over her
leadership. It certainly features some eye-catching quotes from big donors.
“It’s a bit like a new Tesla,” decided one. “Do you really want to put your
money in it until you see if it’s actually going to get to the end of the
road?” Tesla! If there’s one stock that the Tory leader would prefer not to be
equated with right now, our anonymous friend may well have alighted upon it.
Even so, that flight of fancy was a lot more appealing than another big Tory
donor, who confirmed the withholding of funds from the Badenoch-led iteration
of the party by explaining affectlessly: “My lot are waiting for evidence that
their money will actually buy influence.” I suppose it’s quite bracing to hear
people talking openly about the purchase of political influence, even if they
won’t put their name to it (yet).
All of which
suggests we might as well brace for another summer of Conservative attempts to
blood-let. As the grasshopper rubs its legs, so the Tory party sharpens its
axe. Really, very little is starting to suggest the onset of long balmy days
like the unmistakable desire to throw open the windows, and then to throw a
leader out of one.
Marina Hyde
is a Guardian columnist
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