I should preface what follows by making it clear that Kemi Badenoch would not have been my choice for leader of the Tory Party.
Let me also be honest and say nor would Robert Jenrick have been my choice. Nor would any of the other candidates have been favoured by me. So, maybe you can say that I am not the person to comment on the prospects of the Tory Party. Alternatively, you can say that without skin in the game, that is exactly what qualifies me to do so. I take the second view.
So, let me be quite clear about that view. It is that Badenoch has no hope of succeeding as Tory Partyy leader.
A leader of a political party has to appeal to at least four constituencies simultaneously:
- Their parliamentary colleagues
- The media
- The electorate
- Their party membership.
Those are ranked in broad order, reflecting the fact, for example, that after yesterday, Badenoch can take the Tory party faithful for granted for some time to come, but keeping her MPs on side is going to be very much harder. Remember, she never succeeded in winning the support of a majority of them in any ballot on her way to becoming leader.
Remember, too, that they are the constituency by far the most likely to topple her. The history of interim leaders of the Tory Party is littered with the memories of those who arrived with high hopes and limited support who never stayed long enough to make much of a mark on history. Iain Duncan Smith comes most readily to mind, but there are many others. That is where Badenoch's greatest threat is.
And for her to assume the the media will like her would be unwise. The media have products to sell. They will only support Badenoch if what she has to say positions well alongside what they think appeals to their market. So far, many of her more extreme rants (and there have been many of them) might work well on GB News and the Express, but they will be much harder to sell to other outlets. Unless she seriously moderates her position, and I suspect the exact opposite will be the case, then to presume she is going to be popular with the media would be foolhardy.
The electorate is, however, her hardest audience to crack. There are maybe 20 per cent of the electorate who will love her far-right views. The trouble for her is she is competing with Reform for their allegiance. Much else of what she might say, most of which is anti-government and anti-the provision of support to people who might need it is going to be a hard sell to almost any audience when they saw what fourteen years of what she thinks to be a lukewarm version of this policy did to public services. They really are not going to be persuaded that a full-on assault on those services will produce better outcomes.
This means that whilst Badenoch is a clear fit for the messaging to the right of her party and the fringes beyond that, how she can simultaneously also construct messages to appeal to much of the rest of the electorate, with all the nuances that will require to keep up pressure on multiple fronts, is very hard to imagine. I think that the chance that she will develop successful attack lines against Labour, LibDems, the SNP and Greens, all of whom pose threats to her Party, is very unlikely. I doubt she will even manage it with Labour, but if she did that, the rest might prove almost impossible to attack at the same time.
This is, I suggest, a task beyond her wit because her wit will always be to tack right when the reality is that the electorate wants politics to tack left to deliver what people expect from government now. I cannot see how she can resolve that.
So, how long will she last? I suspect she will be gone before the next election. But, if the Tories were unwise enough to keep her, she would be gone the day after that election is declared.
The ever-diminishing number of Tory party members in the UK (down 25% since 2022) might think Badenoch answers some questions they think are relevant. Very few others will.
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I have no qualms about anything you say except to add that it is New Labour V0.2 who might actually embolden Badenoch and also give her credibility. Labour’s internal war on Corbyn certainly enabled the Tories to do their worst as Corbyn’s undermining also hurt the party’s ability to work against Tory austerity, making it easier – the Lib Dems had more to say about it.
What I’m trying to say is that the Labour party for some time was the greatest gift to the Tory party. My view is that it still is. Will Hutton’s piece in the Observer today is a case in point about what I think is faith based politics at the top of our political order.
We don’t need faith. We need a clear acceptance of how the world really works – MMT, spend then tax – we need a proper fiscal operation – not bowing and scraping to markets and dogma.
Hutton was typically Hutton
I think the Tories, quite satisfyingly I must say, have completely destroyed their party with their pandering to the far right and have ended up with complete incompetent and nasty politicians (as the ones with any sense of intelligence have long gone – think Rory Stewart etc). As you say, I can’t see the Tories in their current trajectory can get anywhere near number 10 again, as anyone who agrees with their current policies surely would prefer Reform/Farage, especially after the disaster of the last 14 years. The biggest worry I think, is that the electorate turn to Reform in 2029, after a likely disaster from a right wing Labour.
It’s also frustrating how Laura Kuenssberg continues to earn employment in her role at the BBC. She is providing the narrative of that we have a solid left-right in parliament now, with labour and the opposition, respectively. This is of course absurd, seen as left-right wing politics no longer exists (far too simplistic), as nearly every party is now traditionally right wing (excluding the greens for example), and just have different levels of right wingness. I actually think politics works more in a quadrant also, I.e., split between economic and social policies. With most parties now in the top right of the quadrant (socially right wing and economically right wing).
The question is, will labour go back towards the centre/left in time before Farage in 2029? Or corbyn and a new party? One can dream…
Whether Reform will be a player in 2029 is a question mark – Steve Richards view is that ‘Farage parties always tend to fizzle out’. Farage sets up his parties to steer the Tories to the right – with huge (and very baleful) success.
Jenrick wanted to ‘unite the right’, but the biggest proponent of ‘unite the right’ is Suella Braveman. However, for this to happen, it is the larger party – the Tories – absorbing the smaller party – Reform.
With two parties (both Tories and Reform) competing on almost identical far right territory, Reform would need to dramatically expand their base to be attractive to far more than the 20% of people in the population who consistently share their worldview. And the Tories have the advantage of being the opposition and all that entails, with Reform only having five MPs.
Both the Tories and Reform, also have voters who tend to represent a declining voter base – mainly elderly and retired.
Election results have shown over the last few years, that working age people overwhelmingly vote for Labour, Green, Lib Dem, SNP and Plaid, and not Tories or Reform – especially as the policies of Tories, and especially Reform (privatise the NHS in full – even the Tories don’t say that), are in a Thatcherite right-wing arms race against each other.
Thanks for the reply, I do actually agree with your first and second paragraph. In fact, it could be Farage being parachuted into the Tory leader job, just in time for 2029 *if* the far right are smart enough, due to the FPTP system.
Regarding your third paragraph, I worry the left are not aligned enough of what they really want. By splitting the lefts votes between all them parties, give the far right an advantage, in my opinion, due to FPTP. Also, labour and Lib Dem are not left wing, so people like me who voted for labour this time, purely to get rid of the tories, may not have any viable options next time. I am not sure I could lend my vote to labour again if they do not come back to the centre/left. In the FPTP, there’s then no point in voting for anyone else. You also have a lot of the working aged voters who could be hoodwinked by the far right rhetoric, and think the far right may help them. Look at MAGA and Trump for example.
A good list of the issues. As Labour have moved to the right we now have a right wing government and a more right main opposition. Why Laura Kuenssberg thinks we now have a right versus left divide now amazes me. Labour is about as left as the Tories under Cameron!
We now have an opening for both a left of centre and a right of centre set of parties but where would they come from and how would they survive under our antiquated electoral system?
As both Labour and the Tories have moved right, I cannot see that either have the opportunity of defeating the SNP at the next Holyrood elections. By then the govenments abysmal policies will have alienated so many voters they will find it hard to provide a credible alternative to the SNP.
Beth Rigby let Victoria Atkins repeatedly say Labout was socialist yesterday without ever chanllenging her – becvase there is nothing socialist about Labour
Badenoch has set her stall out in a BBC interview this morning. She told Laura Kuenssberg that “it is not the government that creates growth, it is business creates growth”, adding that this is “completely the opposite of what Rachel Reeves is doing”.
I suppose we’ll be getting more of this but it’s so easy for Labour to counter. Why don’t they do it?
I wish I knew
They really need to get help if they do not know how to do so
Because Reeves believes the same thing.
Growth and wealth are only created by the private sector.
She’s said it often enough
Finally got around to reading George Monbiot’s new book which I think explains fairly well, what has been going on in politics and economics over the last 40 years.
Strongly recommended. Easy read. Fairly short.
The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life) (2024)
by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Invisible-Doctrine-Understanding-Neoliberalism/dp/024163590X
See Amazon for reviews.
When I finally get to a new year sabbatical that is on my reading list
Unfortunately, I had to return my copy of George Monbiot’s book ( I did read it and then took it back to my local bookshop, but I could no longer bear to see it on my bookshelf) about destroying our Welsh environment in return for a synthetic diet of HPF. and the rest….
I admit to being with George
It is a very long time since I ate lamb
We’ll have to disagree
Have just ordered it (but NOT from Amazon!)
Mr Monbiot is very good on ecology & environment. However, on neo-liberalism the definitive work remains “Late Soviet Britain”. Written by an economist – which in fairness to Mr Monbiot, he is not.
Agreed
Personally I find Clara Mattei’s The Capital Order more enlightening and logical, but also more frightening in its implications.
The pretty brutal establishment of austerity post WW1 by the British government, with endorsement by top academic economists including Keynes, plus its embedded nature as a primary tool of political control by both UK and Mussolini, using the same arguments, is devastating.
Absolutely agreed about Abbey Innes’ book, for certain, but Monbiot did introduce me to Steve Keen – even though Monbiot felt Keen was an ‘egotist’. I still have the Guardian article that led me to buying ‘ Debunking Economics’ (2011).
I don’t know what sort of a person Monbiot expects people calling out faulty orthodoxy should behave like, but I never felt Steve Keen was an egotist – he’s just someone who smells bullshit and calls it out – and you can’t be a shrinking violet in that line of work – can you Richard!?
No
Steve is not
This is a bit mischievous,re Badenoch, but I am looking forward to PMQ, I rarely watch but will not be able to resist
Re my previous comment-I haven’t read his latest book- I was referring to his previous diatribes against those of us who are trying to make a living from an unhospitable environment that most people regard as ‘charming and dramatic’ !! and a total disregard for the cultural implications of what he was advocating.
One of the problems with marketing is that the word-lamb- was used to distinguish it from the mutton that all our forefathers ate-just check out any Dickens novels, but in fact what is called lamb-be it Welsh, English or Scottish is in fact mutton! We do not send ‘cute baby lambs ‘ to slaughter- they are at least 6- 9 month old and often yearlings If you can eat beef ( or veal as it was earlier) I can see no reason why you cannot eat lamb.
Of course, thank goodness for immigration because the ‘ethnic ‘ market provides the underpinning of UK sheep production. I myself will, tomorrow morning, be taking a trailer load of old ewes to market- what else am I supposed to do with them and what else could I do with all the grass we grow? Answers, as they say…..
I don’t eat mammals
And yet Wales and it’s farmers voted for brexit to keep those nasty sheep/goat eating foreigners out.
Well done.
Actually, the areas of Wales that voted to remain were those with highest concentration of farmers-Gwynedd and Ceredigion. Also voting to remain were Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire. Unfortunately we were outnumbered by the leave voters of the deprived areas-as happened in England- and areas with many in-comers.