Never lacking in confidence, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has decided she can run Keir Starmer’s team as well as her own. But, just in case the prime minister does not share that view, she is trying to enlist public support. In what she admits is an “unprecedented” move, she has launched a petition calling on him to sack his chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
If any move were destined to achieve the opposite effect, this stunt must be it. The aim, presumably, is to demonstrate what a tough and determined operator Badenoch is compared to a chancellor who bleats about “mansplaining”. The best she can hope for is that it might bolster her appeal to a very limited audience, but to little permanent effect.
When she took over as Tory leader in late 2024, the party’s sixth in less than nine years, Badenoch was very clear that she would take time to develop serious policies. In an interview with BBC Radio 4 she explained her approach: “I do the thinking and what people are going to get with new leadership under me is thoughtful Conservatism, not knee-jerk analysis.” There has not been much of that in evidence though.
No one could argue that Reeves had a glorious budget success and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s early release of the entire package generously delivered Badenoch an easy run at what is generally one of the toughest jobs the opposition leader faces, providing an instant response to the speech. She managed a brutal, knockabout performance.
Nevertheless, demanding Reeves be sacked for “lying” about the state of the country’s finances on the strength of relatively tiny changes in numbers is simply silly. Such figures are always subject to revision, sometimes fairly drastic, and anyhow, in relation to the country’s overall finances, they are minuscule.
Until recently, Badenoch herself had hardly been looking secure in her post, faced with Reform’s broad popularity, the shrunken base of her own party, the public’s reluctance to see the Tories anywhere near government for a good while yet and her own relatively lacklustre performance. She has chosen to abandon doing “the thinking” and just played to the gallery.
Enthusiastic headlines in the right wing media (the Telegraph’s Charles Moore has declared the rise of “Keminism”) do not amount to a resurrection of the Conservative Party, as the subsequent resignation of Malcolm Offord demonstrated. Lord Offord of Garvel, having served very briefly as a minister under Rishi Sunak, is joining Reform and ditching his peerage in the hope of winning a seat in Holyrood.
Ironically, the wealthy former Tory donor made his career in the City and then, in 2013, launched his own firm in his native Scotland, naming it Badenoch, which happens to be the name of a region in the Scottish Highlands as well as that of the leader he is deserting.
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Kemi Badenoch: the pseudo-conservative
Scotland has its own gripes against the Conservatives but any chance of a genuine resurrection of the party will require it to regain the one credential for which it used to be valued, a degree of economic competence, and then some sensible, thought-through policies as to how the UK should build a strong and comfortable society on the basis of foundations which are currently crumbling.
One revolutionary idea might be to query whether the whole budget process is a phenomenal waste of effort that could and should be abandoned by any sensible administration. Months spent in testing ideas, denying leaks and, eventually, declaring numerous small initiatives amid a battery of forecasts for years ahead that will be subject to events and forces, national and international, that cannot even be imagined, let alone factored in, is surely suitable work only for fantasists.
Should it really be necessary to wait until a pre-ordained budget day to announce an extra £18m “to improve and upgrade playgrounds across England”? Yet that is exactly what Reeves did on November 26.
The UK’s public sector spending in the current financial year is likely to be at least £1.35tn. In that context, the furore over whether Reeves’s numbers were out by £4.2bn is clearly completely crazy. Besides, the rejoicing over the fact that tax receipts appeared to have risen sufficiently to more than make up for a reduction in productivity is a somewhat contrary reaction: should any serious politician be thrilled with the possible implication that poor productivity was being rewarded with more generous pay? As a recipe for economic success that would not bode well.
The undeniable fact is that the country is living beyond its means. Simply servicing the debt on our borrowing, not making any dent in the amount owing, swallows at least a tenth of government spending.
Radical change is clearly required but will not be popular and no politician currently around seems prepared to confront the real issues.
Nigel Farage and his Reform party see no need to do so; the Greens cannot afford to face reality; the LibDems remain more comfortable thinking locally rather than nationally. But if Badenoch and the Tories really wanted a future – for the country and themselves – then they should step back and genuinely do the thinking she promised about what might really work.
Drastically simplifying our ludicrous tax system would be a great place to start: it currently enriches accountants but not the country. The welfare system is completely out of control, and needs a total rethink, not piecemeal reform, and that includes pensions: the triple lock is simply indefensible. As for social care, it has been kicked so far into the long grass that it might eventually be rediscovered as an endangered species.
A brave political brain, accepting that electoral success is not in the offing, might take the time to usefully think about real answers to deep-seated problems. Alas, despite those early promises, that does not seem to be Kemi Badenoch.
