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3 hours ago
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Seeing is not always believing. Fair to say that Kemi Badenoch’s time as leader of the Tory party has not got off to the best of starts. Hopeless at prime minister’s questions and seemingly already out of ideas, many in the party are already looking around for possible successors. Even Robert Jenrick. Things really are that desperate.
Even so, 10 weeks in feels a little premature for a relaunch. If that’s what it was. Hard to know really as no one was much the wiser after Kemi had finished what had been billed as an “important” speech at the Institute of Directors in central London. No one does pointlessness quite like KemiKaze. She is the queen of futility.
If it was a relaunch, things got quite meta on Thursday afternoon – the question became “What was she relaunching as?” At a wild guess, a standup comedian. Because the speech was one sick joke. With the laughs very firmly on the voters. It was as though she had chosen to gaslight the country for shits and giggles. Or maybe it was one of the longer career suicide notes in history. An admission that she isn’t much interested in the job. Too hard. Too many bad vibes.
Where to start? If you were really planning on giving a “new broom” speech to reassure the world you were serious about changing your party, you’d probably choose someone other than Simon Clarke – or Sir Simon Clarke, as he insisted on calling himself – to introduce you. Your reminder that Simple Simon was a staunch Boris Johnson and Liz Truss supporter who was given his knighthood by none other than the Trusster herself and lost his seat at the last election. That would be a badge of shame for most people. But not our Si.
“Britain is not working for people,” began Si, having entered the room to a standing ovation from Honest Bob, presumably there just to gloat, Helen Whately and a few other deadbeats. Even for a major speech, most of Kemi’s MPs can’t bear to show their faces. Thursday is their group therapy session to process their collective failure. Yes. Britain isn’t working. And who do you think might have done most to make the country so rubbish? Give you one guess … Simple Si’s synapses were unable to make the cognitive leap.
Then neither could Kemi. She had promised to apologise for the disastrous last 14 years of Tory governments, but when push came to shove she could only mumble a few generalities. Couldn’t bring herself to name names. Couldn’t bring herself to say that she had been thoroughly on board with most of the decisions of Boris, the Trusster and Rishi Sunak. All she could do was mouth a few platitudes. She was sorry but not sorry. Had done nothing wrong.
Right from the start, the tone was downbeat. Borderline clinically depressed. If this was an appeal to get people to vote Tory again it died on contact with reality. It wasn’t just the content – or rather the absence of it – it was the manner of it. As if Kemi has had all the joy sucked out of her and was only going through the motions. The job was just too hard. No one likes the Tory party any more and even the remaining Tories don’t care. They are reduced to seeking help as an endangered species.
“No one tells the truth any more,” said Badenoch. Least of all her. It was just her bad luck that she had been elected leader in the aftermath of five Tory prime ministers. They had all managed to get away with lying quite successfully. Something she had been happy to champion.
Now she was trying to distance herself from … herself. The ultimate psychic split. She even managed to say there was nothing that she felt she needed to apologise for herself. She wasn’t capable of making mistakes. The perfect machine. Less than two minutes in and her handlers were already desperately trying to reprogamme her. And you thought the Maybot was delusional.
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We reached peak nonsense when Kemi got to the section on Brexit. She is now firmly in the Nigel Farage camp. We have been sold a very bad Brexit by incompetent Tory governments which never had a plan. Like she and Nige had never had a plan. Weird that no one remembers her warning Bozza, Liz and Rish! they had got it badly wrong and had to change tack. “We need a Brexit plan for growth,” she said. That would be membership of the customs union and single market, then. Er, no. Kemi was in a fugue state. At her happiest when insulting everyone’s intelligence.
The final 10 minutes was filler. Mindless blurb that you’ve all heard from politicians countless times before. Sound and mild irritation, signifying nothing. The need to restore trust. Well, how about you don’t immediately boast about sorting out the Post Office scandal when everyone knows you didn’t. The post office operators are still waiting for compensation. Lies like that are obvious to anyone.
Then there was the nonsense about doing things differently. New broom, new team. Except the new team looks suspiciously like the old team. The same men and women who screwed up the country filling the same shadow cabinet jobs. Maybe it was all too depressing for her. Imagine how it feels to us. Never thought I’d say this, but Jezza Hunt and Jimmy Dimly begin to look like world beaters in comparison.
No hope. No insight. No apology. A speech that was best described as an absence. Kemi was equally bored when she came to take a few questions from what she hoped were friendly media outlets. A few reporters checked in: were there any more people she wanted to put down? Was there any chance she might one day have some policies?
Er … no. Too much like hard work. Why bother when she would be replaced within a couple of years? Try to see it from her point of view. She was fed up. Why should she pretend to be optimistic? She had the worst job in the world. Everyone hated the Tories. Right at the end of the session, we finally got to the truth.
