The Daily Mail used to pride itself on setting agendas – or at least knowing what the agenda was. So there was surprise in its offices last Friday, a day after Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage exchanged fire.
Rather than a typical Mail savaging of Labour or an examination of Reform’s dodgy sums, the paper’s front-page lead story was an exclusive interview with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who has taken the so-called “natural party of government” down to fourth in polls. Even worse, the tin-eared Tory was displaying her lack of political acumen by calling Labour and Reform’s plans to scrap the two-child benefit cap “a race to the bottom” – a remarkable way to describe something that will lift nearly half a million children out of poverty.
The word in Mail HQ is that the paper will spend the rest of this year doing what it can to boost Badenoch and save the Tory party. But she is viewed as such a liability by some that one insider calls a switch to endorsing Reform “inevitable” in the long run.
