“There is a time for every purpose under heaven” Ecclesiastes 3:1
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating, in the world of political strategy timing is everything.
You can have a plan, and god knows we’ve all seen what happens when you don’t. Indeed there’s a real fear that our plan-less adenoidal overlord may have gone but the over Northern, tik-tok Mayor of Britian who replaced him may also be without a proper blueprint, or at least one that will work.
However you can have a plan, but even when you do, it can alter on ‘first contact with the enemy’. Which is why flexing to the rhythms of political ebb and flow is a vital part of making a plan work.
It has to move with the times – but when the times come you have to seize the opportunities.
The Conservatives have been gifted just such an opportunity and they must seize it.
This time last year with the party facing its first Conference with Kemi Badenoch as leader after a year where she had failed to find her groove, and battled to be noticed – serious problems the still ‘on the face of it Conservative’ Robert Jenrick was happy to point out – I pointed out three crucial fixed tests Badenoch had to pass or she was likely to be toast.
At the time it’s very probable that privately Sir Keir Starmer envisaged her being unceremoniously toppled long before he led his party into another election in 2029 not turfed out himself less than twelve months later and the timing of that election very much in question.
Badenoch, I wrote, had to ace her Conference speech, deliver a Budget response that took the fight straight to Labour, and in local elections of May this year; not get wiped out by Reform.
I’ve subsequently given her two and half out of three on that test.
She transparently lifted her party at Conference last year, early in the proceedings showing she’d given herself a shake, and recognised the jeopardy of anything but outstanding. She delivered the speech, and delivered the lift.
The Budget response rocked Starmer and Reeves backwards into their benches, the self-satisfaction of the previous Budget – where Reeves had taken a swipe at Badenoch even though she wasn’t leader and thereby put a target on her head – was wiped from both their faces.
Badenoch continued to build regular ‘good days in the office’ while Starmer had fewer of those and too many allies having to leave office.
Both of them suffered big losses in the local elections – let’s not forget how bad it was, not least for many hundreds of good Tory councillors who lost their seats – but it was Badenoch who weathered the battering, and Starmer who ended up being shown the door.
It was mid-May the name of Burnham got mentioned more and more and he, and Louise Haigh saw the time was right. For this he did have a plan, and he executed it.
I also said in the first days of January that this year would be the defining year for the Right. That the whole unite the right or fight alone question would one way or another be resolved. I still think that is correct, it’s just not over or decided yet.
Let’s be clear right now, Reform are not down or out. There’s no inevitability that their project implodes and those relying on that are fools. Despite the first polls showing the Tories narrowly ahead, there are still those that have them where they’ve been for eighteen months out in front, or at least ahead of the Tories despite Burnham’s bounce.
Burnham has personally raised his party’s poll ratings. Farage is not personally popular outside Reform but his party is. Badenoch polls really well personally, her party does not – yet.
So where’s this opportunity?
Reform are not beaten, not going away and not imploding but they are right now, very vulnerable.
2026 was not their summer, and arguably it had to be. Farage fell foul of his own anger – and made a misstep. Being holed up in Clacton for six weeks in a by-election where he called the tune but forgot nobody was obliged to dance to it, constrained and tired him – and he doesn’t tire easily.
When the whole thing was over, though he dodged the count and pictures defeating a bin, it took him right back to Parliament, and square one. It also revived questions over that £5m ‘donation/gift’ that had caused the thing in the first place.
He takes a break, and in his absence cracks at the top of Reform appear. While the ‘cat’s away’ Zia Yusuf decides his social media game needs upping to new levels of provocation, upsets people and Tim Montgomerie, now a Reformer on the verge of launching a similar site to this, who is summarily suspended for being a critical friend – something the Tories never did when he ran this site.
So with all this, Reform UK’s 2026 Conference was meant to be the big bang return.
Farage had a big task, but the Conference had signed up more attendees, had business involvement, and a lot of media focus, as much to see if they could rediscover that lost momentum as much as ask about the millions and posh George’s mum. Posh George by the way being conspicuous by his absence.
Then Channel 4 News happened.
Was it deliberate to damage Reform? Of course it was. Are Verbatim activists, using investigative journalism as a tool for that activism? Yes. Are they funded by American money? Again yes, but they aren’t a political party. Did Reform take any money? No.
Did they let somebody else spend some on polling helpful to Reform? Yes, that’s one of the allegations. Did Reform ‘commission’ that polling, well Reform deny that, but I’d just suggest they watch the expose again because that seems hard to argue against.
I’m not running through the minutiae but Farage clearly thought in the early hours of last Friday that so bad was the image and implication that his closest personal ally, and other political son Dan Jukes had to go. James Orr who had with Danny Kruger been providing proper intellectual heft to the project, had been silly enough to put himself in a position where he too had to go.
Farage is wounded, by the loss of these two, and by the fact his family are starting to ask him not to do this political thing anymore. The latter for Nigel will hurt most. He does feel these things and it’s true perhaps others have not accepted quite how much threat there is to him personally, despite how much security he seems to have, without Government help.
Badenoch can afford to be empathetic about the security of family, we know she was with Starmer over the arson attack on his house. She too feels the pressure being at the top of politics brings to family, however she cannot give an inch politically.
Already as leader of the real official Opposition it has been her to hold Andy Burnham to account, twice, and whilst it’s just days into those contests, Farage hasn’t asked him anything face to face.
Here is her opportunity, and the timing.
Reform on the back foot, Burnham selling mood music with no money. A Conference coming where Farage’s was partially derailed, and a Budget to respond to in short order.
This Conservative Conference this year, is arguably more important than the last. This time she has to be great, but so do her new team.
It’s Badenoch, yes, but she’s got to get the brand back together.
They have to answer the huge promises Reform have made on tax, and welfare cuts. Credibly counter the Bardella-Farage pact on stopping the boats.
She has to articulate that Burnham’s bonhomie will not cut the cost of living and if he tries via tax rises, or more borrowing he’ll bankrupt not just us but the next generation.
None of this is easy, however it is essential. So far despite the small number of critical commentators who wrote her off from the start, I believe that she can make the most of this opportunity, but it is not – and never has been – a given.
Farage has stumbled through a door and left it open. He will probably pick himself up though, so Kemi Badenoch has to march though the gap, with her party keeping pace and seize the advantage.
If she doesn’t – or worse can’t – then the renewal will stall. If the PM does go early then that kind of stall could be very damaging indeed.