The nasty party is back

When, in 2002, Theresa May told the Conservatives they were increasingly viewed by the public as “the nasty party”, it was as a warning. Does Kemi Badenoch view it as the goal?

Not one but two senior Tories this week took to, inevitably, X, to apparently mock prime minister Andy Burnham despite the fact that he had just lost his beloved father. In both cases the tin-eared posts were so unpleasant that they had the remarkable achievement of being too much even for users of that sewer-like platform.

Esther McVey – Rishi Sunak’s former ‘minister for common sense’ and still, remarkably, an MP – led the charge, attacking Burnham for not holding Prime Minister’s Questions this week (as an MP for 16 years, one might have thought McVey would have known PMQs never takes place during party conference season).

“There will be no PMQs today, for which Andy Burnham must be relieved and the nation should be grateful,” she wrote on Wednesday, two days after the death of Roy Burnham was announced. The PM’s dad had been suffering from Alzheimer’s and his father’s illness was so advanced that he did not know his son had become prime minister.

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None of that seemed to matter to McVey, who continued: “He’s a dud at the despatch box. His last two performances have been a car crash and caused gaffes that required immediate corrections and clarifications from Number 10.

“Old Labour lags say openly to those of us on the opposition benches that Burnham’s a nice enough guy, just not up to the job. Others call him a windbag with an ego the size of a planet which is why he lost the previous two leadership elections he contested. But what’s clear for all to see, Burnham is a disaster at the despatch box.”

The post managed to upset even McVey’s fellow Conservatives. As one wrote: “Esther I am a Conservative Party member. Andy Burnham’s dad died a matter of days ago. This is really inappropriate. Do yourself a favour and delete the tweet.”

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McVey’s post was followed by an even more unpleasant one by Peter Cruddas, the billionaire banker, Brexiteer and former Conservative Party treasurer who was handed a seat for life in the House of Lords by Boris Johnson in 2021.

Reposting a message by a pseudonymous account mocking a video of Burnham speaking the day after his father’s death, Cruddas wrote: “He looks stressed and under pressure already and he’s only been in the job a few weeks. He has the look of a man completely out of his depth.”

As one Conservative supporter, Ben Archibald, wrote in response: “I say this as a 100% blue wool Tory: fuck off. His dad just died. He’s trying to do what so many men do and muddle through before grieving properly.”

Offering condolences to the prime minister earlier in the week, Badenoch said: “No matter how old you are, or how much you try to prepare, losing your father is a profoundly painful experience.” Such thoughts, apparently, do not extend to the rest of her party.