“England is a story we are all still writing and it’s never over, never done”
Words delivered by Joseph Fiennes playing former England manager Gareth Southgate in the BBC adaptation of the play “Dear England” by James Graham.
Graham’s reputation is for gripping retelling of political history, with The House, Brexit: The uncivil war and Coalition but watching this four part drama all about football and a man with a strong vision for how to turn around the fortunes of the national football side, kept leading me back to politics.
Here was this man, Gareth Southgate handed a job “no serious manager really wanted” – words given to the actor playing the current England manager Thomas Tuchel – and he won the respect of his players and – mostly, most of the time – fans, and who slowly delivered better results than those fans had seen in years. And all the time he cares about the team and the mission, the history and the pride, he just isn’t sure it’s going to work. Doubts haunt him like the German goalkeeper who thwarted him in 1996.
A World cup quarter final, a Euros final, a world cup semi-final, and another Euros final is a fantastic record for a man who set out on that journey in 2016 with most people saying England were dead and never coming back from the icy wastelands of a defeat by Iceland.
It had echoes of late 2024, and the Conservatives.
Last Friday I wrote something honest about my view of Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch. I stand by every word. I was also completely prepared for some rather predictable – yet potentially valid – responses.
I’ll paraphrase. Save us all time. But answer each of them because, even if I like and respect Kemi for what she’s doing as leader, all is still not well for the Party.
Here goes:
‘All very well liking Badenoch but the party is polling 1% in Makerfield. You’re finished. Dead or dying. Go Reform and Nigel!’
Ok, there is a valid question hiding in that broken-record hubris.
Our polling is not great, and whilst I think taking anything much from polling in Makerfield is wildly silly (polling constituencies is notoriously tricky as any good pollster will tell you, by-elections in said constituency make it even harder and this is an extraordinary by-election on so many levels) but generally whilst still in the leading three, the Party’s national polling is consistently seven points off our polling when we lost so badly in 2024 and Reform have equally consistently polled higher than everyone for many, many months.
A year ago you could still say ‘too soon’ but my warning is that line is getting weaker and stale. Remember if we heard Starmer say the words “£22bn black hole” one more time you’d want to slap his chops with a wet cod, well “it’s too soon after the 2024 election” has the minor advantage of at least being true, but people are equally tired of hearing it.
‘What does it matter Badenoch is popular? So’s Ed Davey, and so was Paddy Ashdown but that’s because no-one thinks of them as credible so it doesn’t matter liking them and besides, she only looks good because Starmer is crap’
Again this carefully thought through coping talk, does have a kernel of validity.
Leader popularity alone rarely does the business.
I’ve repeatedly argued real renewal doesn’t work if the leader is not popular (or less unpopular to be accurate) so I’d rather have it, than not, but Kemi can’t do this alone, and yet – and last night she was top billing with my old friend the Spectator’s Tim Shipman for an ‘audience with’ – it’s often ‘the Kemi show’, her spotlight – not that she yearns for it like Truss, and Johnson did, indeed it took too long for her to step into it.
And yes Starmer really is dreadful. But I’m not sure that’s fair.
To Badenoch.
It’s not so much that he’s rubbish, but she’s good. Holding out for her to suddenly lose to a ‘sparkling Burnham’ or even a ‘cold furious Farage’, is as precarious a hope as any Tory secretly hoping Nigel falls apart somehow and Reform implodes.
Maybe, but it’s third-rate, weak aspiration.
‘Blair said it was all about policies not politics when he had a go at Starmer. Well, same applies: Badenoch might be good but where the hell are the policies – stamp duty is all I can think of’
Again whilst there are far more than that one policy – and those who don’t really want to be convinced the Tories can come back from the brink often go policy blind, never mind colour blind, when it comes to a fair assessment of the party now – it’s true there is an impatience to see ‘more red meat’
Remember Kemi’s ‘red meat’ policy restaurant? Come on then, it’s time to start taking reservations! (My best guess is a show case opening week from October 4-7th 2026) but that’s 117 days away.
At the moment whilst I can name far more policy announcements than harsher critics can, so far on policy – it’s a soup kitchen not a restaurant.
‘She can be impressive as a person, I like her too, but I don’t believe the ‘lib dems in the party’ will let her do any of it, and frankly mate, apart from her, the shadow cabinet needs reshuffling, and parts of the voluntary party are dead, or dying off, or behave like they don’t even need to try!’
I’ve rubbished the ‘Tory/Lib Dem’ thing so many times I’m not doing it again here, but if the party really is a broad church or has to be then two sides of the congregation need to listen to Archbishop Hollinrake and the Head of the Church, Badenoch that: who sits in the pews and what issues forth from the doors is “Conservative” – that’s it. No ‘versions of’ and no individual schisms.
Contracts to be signed by candidates to sign up to this may seem a little harsh but ‘one creed’ and ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’ may need to be the aisle to go down.
And the wider party?
Well there our critics also have a point.
At a National level the voluntary party is actually in good shape, sharper than perhaps it’s been for a few years. There are places where local associations are really strong, where a campaigning MP, a fighter for their seat, has inspired local support and it’s paid dividends. Elsewhere in the country there are associations that are more like social cliques, where entrance comes from being mates with the incumbent, the campaigning is minimal, but the G&Ts are good.
Wake up – there’s no truly safe seats anymore and these are places where it’d be impressive to see more war-war than jaw-jaw. That’s not even counting areas where the Conservatives are just not even in the minds of voters. Makerfield for one, nice chap though the candidate is.
And finally I’ll share a comment from a senior and supportive Tory that picked up on my analysis that – and I return to the football drama here – Kemi and her team have a belief and a strategy. It’s too patient for some. It’s careful when some want daring. It’s fronted by some they want to see less of and not handed enough to people they want to see more of.
However Kemi has told me more than once “we’re playing a long game here”, and she likes poker.
This was my WhatsApp message:
“I totally get what she’s saying but for a person who likes poker that’s one hell of a high stakes gamble”
I’m still willing to back the bet, but as I’ve outlined there is a long way to go to convince people the party will, or even can, win again.
Gareth Southgate did an amazing job, raised hopes and changed the narrative over eight years but we all know the ending – he didn’t actually win the prize. And there’s no point doing the grand ‘Ta-DAH!’ moment, for the Tories, if the crowd has already left the stadium months before.
Time to get some points on the board for the party as a whole, or eventually our best player and captain may get the golden boot through no real fault of her own, even though she’ll get the blame.