If you think the Tories’ problems would be solved if they ditched Kemi Badenoch and turned to any of the mooted replacements – or indeed to anyone else – then I have a bridge to sell you. When you’re booted out of office less than a year ago because the public despise you – because they think you stand for nothing, are disastrously useless, and are incapable of telling the truth about anything – then the idea that you just need to be a bit better at social media memes and appear on a few more TV interviews is risible.
Imagine how refreshing it would be to have a leader who was honest about the need to cut welfare
The truth is that even on their current 16 per cent, it’s not clear that the Conservatives have yet hit their floor. Reform is soaring ahead and the Lib Dems have effectively replaced the party in much of the south. That’s not going to change with yet another leadership coup, which will simply confirm the settled view of the electorate that Tory MPs are only interested in themselves.
Which leaves the question: what, if anything, can the party do to arrest the decline and establish an identity which starts to resonate with voters? I don’t suggest it is necessarily even possible, let alone clear, to see a path to that. But there is, surely, one prerequisite – one which Badenoch has already said she is attempting. In her very first speech as leader in November she told her party an important truth: ‘To be heard, we have to be honest. Honest about the fact we made mistakes. Honest about the fact that we let standards slip. The time has come to tell the truth.’
That last sentence is key. Certainly, the Conservatives have to be clear about their own mistakes – such as Johnson’s catastrophic relaxation of immigration rules. But while honesty must obviously include the party’s own mistakes in the past, the real need for honesty is much wider and more contemporary.
As things stand, the next election will be a fight between Labour and Reform. Neither party is capable of levelling with the public – which is a polite way of saying both lie with impunity and take the public for fools. There is surely a gap for a party and a leader which does something unusual and tells the truth.
Starmer’s Labour spins to an extent that would surely make Alastair Campbell blush, such as over the cost of the Chagos deal. Only last week the prime minister claimed that ‘we have nearly halved net migration in the last year. We’re taking back control.’ But he had nothing to do with the fall – Labour wasn’t even in power for half the time covered by the figures – which was entirely the result of new visa rules brought in by the last government, rules which Labour actually attacked, with Yvette Cooper dismissing them as ‘chaotic’.
Reform is following the traditional Lib Dem route of promising the earth without providing the slightest indication of how to pay for its promises. Nigel Farage has always been a skilled political chameleon, and in addition to promising tax cuts and better public services has now refashioned Reform as the champion of welfare, saying on Tuesday he would reverse the two-child benefit cap and introduce yet more welfare by giving tax allowances to married couples. What will pay for it? Go on, have a guess. Yup: efficiency savings.
In that context it was refreshing that in her Sunday round of interviews, Badenoch refused to play the game. Asked about the cap, she didn’t simply talk about costs and affordability but pointed out the truth: ‘People know that the two-child benefit cap is there for a good reason, and there are many people out there who say, “If you can’t afford to have lots of children, then you shouldn’t do so”.’
That wasn’t the only bracing truth in her interviews. Asked about the recent statement by Keir Starmer, Emanuel Macron and Mark Carney threatening Israel with sanctions which was praised by Hamas as ‘an important step in the right direction’, she pointed out that the leaders’ public criticism of Israel ‘does not send the right message’ and led to ‘terrorist cheers’ from Hamas. ‘If Hamas is praising your actions, you’ve probably done something wrong.’
Focus groups and polls show that voters have yet to really form an impression of Badenoch, which sounds bad after she has been in the job for six months. But it actually presents an opportunity. The fates of William Hague and Ed Miliband show how easily voters can take against a party leader; Badenoch has the chance to carve out a political identity which resonates as the teller of unvarnished truths. That will not always seem the politically expedient option. There will be a political price to pay, for example, for pointing out that in the modern world the NHS simply cannot provide everyone with everything and that, wonderful as new medical technologies are, we need to examine how we fund healthcare. But the reward for being honest and open will be bigger.
Imagine how refreshing it would be to have a leader and a party which was honest about the need to cut welfare and which said that vital increases in defence necessarily mean cuts elsewhere. I’m not naïve enough to think that being brutally honest with voters will always be a win. But at the very least, it would give the Conservatives a purpose – and respect. Neither of which they are close to having at the moment.
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