The Only Grown-Up In The Room

by Stoker

Strange times.  It is an accepted quirk of British politics and the media that August is the “silly season”.  Ludicrous stories that cannot possibly be true suddenly capture the headlines; politicians come out with most bizarre statements; items of no real significance suddenly dominate for days on end.  Then the schools reopen, the airports are jammed with returning holidaymakers, forty-mile traffic holdups appear on the A303 past Stonehenge; and all returns to normal. 

The summer hols of 2025 are no different to this standard pattern, but the silly season has got nasty.  This year features angry crowds hurling abuse at bewildered refugees locked into their hostels; the Deputy Prime Minister whirling at increasing speeds to avoid a charge of tax evasion; a chain of cosmetic shops closing for a day to show solidarity with starving people in Gaza; the Duchess of Sussex accused of… well…many things but this is a magazine for all the family and we won’t give further details. A comedy writer is arrested at Heathrow by five armed police officers for rude tweeting.  Mr Farage is in Washington raucously addressing a special committee of Congress about free speech.  The economy is in such a mess that it is rumoured the IMF is shaking its piggy bank to see what it could spare for the UK (nothing, is apparently the answer, as all its members are almost as bankrupt, or more, than the UK).  And everywhere the flag of St George hangs from lamp posts, adorns motorway bridges, is painted on mini-roundabouts; a flag symbolising a Middle Eastern soldier who got tangled up with dragon-fighting and with no discernible connection to England at all.

Only in one corner of Westminster is all quiet and calm and considered.  Whilst the party political leaders squirm or spit or hurl tweets at each other, Ms Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party, is encouraging her colleagues to reflect on past errors, consider the true meaning of Conservatism, and work with her for a year or three on a philosophy and set of considered policies which will reflect Tory values and a Badenoch path for Britain. 

It is as though Kemi is on a different planet, or at least has given up reading the newspapers and tuning into the 10 o’clock news; all in Conservative Central Office is serene.  She has nothing much to say about Ms Rayner’s trials at the fingers of the various tax specialists who have suddenly sprung up on every street corner.  Sir Keir’s agonising repositionings on this and every subject seem to bring out her gentle side. Mr Farage she ignores. She does not even seem to giggle at Sir Ed Davey boycotting the Trump banquet that he had not been invited to. If she is laughing with the rest of us at the NoName Party, a.k.a. People’s Party, a.k.a. J Corbyn Return’s Party, a.k.a. Fruit and Nut Party, she keeps it to herself.

Mrs Badenoch is doing serious things; she indeed is a serious person. Like one M Thatcher, who found herself in a tricky place in the late 1970’s, she is making a plan.  Like Mrs T. she is not going to get diverted or waylaid by silly happenings or puerile traps.  The parallels with 1975 to 1979 are quite startling in many ways: a divided and tired Labour government, a collapsing economy, unhappiness in the streets, a disloyal streak on the Conservative back benches.  Mrs Badenoch is well informed about how Mrs Thatcher rose and triumphed. In 2029, if not before, she is going to do what the Iron Lady did fifty years ago and storm back into power and sort this mess out.   

In fact, “if not before” is one of the potential traps.  Mrs Thatcher looked at every aspect of policy and political solutions, she recruited her future advisors and ministers in lengthy conversations, she set up groups to do research and analysis (I am proud to say I served on an education group, though our suggestions are yet to be implemented). And it took her much time and effort. She was lucky that she had four years to complete an overhaul of every aspect of Conservatism  and the Conservative Party. These things take time, especially pulling together the army of supporters and thinkers at all levels.

Kemi though has a possible worry, indeed, several. What seemed unthinkable a year ago is starting to feel an outside possibility. The Labour Party may split, Sir Keir may attempt to assert his authority by calling a snap election, drawing the Lib Dems to his side and jettisoning the Sultana/Corbyn brigade and relying on the spilt between Reform and the Conservatives to let him through the middle.  Would he dare? He is not an impressive leader but he is a skilled manoeuvrer and indeed a brave politician.  He dissed Jeremy Corbyn once; he might be tempted to do it again.  He also can see that if Kemi is given time (we will come back to this) her plan may very well work. The Conservative Party, that great political survivor party, may come storming back. 

Reform is a one-man band and Mr Farage is not one for bringing on strong colleagues to share his limelight.  He also is an arch populist whose policies are simply spouted to encourage the cheers of the crowd.  Lower taxes? Yes!  More benefits for the poor? Yes!  More spending on roads? Yes!  Cheaper driving costs? Lower taxation? Yes, yes, yes! Less windfarms? Yes!  More private enterprise? Yes! Nationalise steel? Yes! It does not make sense and even the excited flag-waving crowd are starting to see that.  And if Labour can reduce illegal immigration, return a few refugees, then they kick away Nigel’s main crowd appeal.  And Sir K emerges triumphant, the man of the centre.  A bit like Mr Cameron in 2010, maybe even to the extent of cuddling Sir Ed Davey and once more smothering the Lib-Dems on the altar of power; or the perverted dream of it. Oh, beware the false lure of the ministerial limousine.

Mrs Badenoch must lie awake worrying that events may just push Keir that way and that what seems a mad longshot might well pay off.  The Conservatives will in time recover their reputation, as the utter shamble of the last fourteen years disappears under the growing cloud of Labour incompetence, but will that time be hers?  In particular, will she survive as leader of the Conservative Party?

That, as my surgeon once said when asked as a supplementary how many people had survived the operation he was proposing for me, is a different question.  Every reader of Only Connect would say, if asked, that another change of Tory leader at this point would almost certainly be fatal to the survival of the Conservative Party; it is not that much of a survivor!  And there is nobody else with Mrs Badenoch’s strategic intelligence and determined forward-planning. Mr Jenrick is a noisy fool, fine as a weapon of war but easily bested in learned debate.  James Cleverly is intelligent and polished but over impulsive. Tom Tugendaht is solid but unimaginative. There may be others on their way through (or lurking; Rishi Sunak as a healer?) but they are not on anybody’s radar yet.  The party would be stupid to jettison Kemi. But, this is the party that promoted Edward Heath and Theresa May, and Liz Truss…

If she survives, if Sir Keir struggles on for three years or so with his fractious cabinet and party, if Mr Farage sinks slowly then quickly with all hands, Mrs Badenoch is the most serious payer in the room, she will be the best prepared, and she may well be  heading the most convincing alternative government.  Whether we can survive another three years or more, is, to echo my surgeon once more, a different question.