Peter Franklin is an Associate Editor of UnHerd.
George Orwell defined liberty as “the right to tell people what they don’t want to hear.” On that basis, I’d define conservatism as the duty to tell people what they don’t want to hear — if, that is, they need to hear it.
I’ll get on to what it is the nation needs to hear in a bit. But first I’m going to start with the Conservative Party.
With conference in full swing the talk is of the difference between the upbeat mood this year and the funereal atmosphere last year (at least until the moment that Kemi Badenoch blew everyone’s socks off with that speech).
If, however, one takes a look at the polling averages (for instance, this one from Election Maps UK) we can put some hard numbers on our progress over the last twelve months. So on the 5th October 2025 the Conservative vote share stood at 17.8 per cent. One year later, it stands at 19.8 per cent.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not turning my nose up at those two percentage points. Given the dynamics of our electoral system they could make all the difference between our survival as a major political party and a one-way ticket to the wilderness. Furthermore, holding on to that modest improvement despite the high profile defections of February, the local election losses in May and the Starmer-Burnham switcheroo in July, is no mean feat.
What’s more, vote share isn’t the only measure of the party’s fortunes. If you look at our projected seat tally, then the improvement really is noticeable. A year ago we were heading for minor party status on something like fifty — or even fewer — seats. Now, many projections show us in triple figures. As things stand we might hope to improve on our dismal 2024 result — or at least exceed the Reform and Lib Dem totals, thus retaining our position as the Official Opposition.
Then again, the ground that we’ve recovered on the electoral map is mostly the product of the precipitous decline in Reform’s vote share and not our own incremental gains.
Moreover, the narrowing of the Tory-Reform polling gap comes at a price. Even if we stay as the Official Opposition, that is increasingly likely to be to a Labour majority government (or Lib-Lab coalition). I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the Conservative Party as a rump presence on the backbenches or as a junior partner to a Reform-led government, but another five years of soft Left decay is a gruesome prospect.
Last week, half the commentariat lined up to abase themselves before Andy Burnham’s podium. His was the best conference speech since the days of Tony Blair, they gushed.
It was, in fact, the most dangerous. Not some peroration for the ages, but a rhetorical exercise in what psychologists call avoidance — i.e. a pathological failure to face up to reality. This often involves a delusional focus on minor, irrelevant or fictitious problems — anything but the actual problem. Deflection is what Burnham is all about. The challenges we face as a country? Well, it’s obvious: Thatcher’s to blame and, um, Brexit and, er, First Past The Post. No mention of the real issue, which is that we can’t sustain an ever-expanding welfare state in an era of low growth, mass immigration and an ageing population.
It’s a terrible truth that basically blows up the raison d’être of the Labour Party — which is why they won’t and can’t admit to it. End-stage Labour isn’t a descent into Corbynite madness (which was an aberration) nor a terminal case of woke brainworms (which, in some respects, they’re backing away from), but the organised denial of reality on the affordability of welfarism.
At this point I do need to admit to a complication. On the pensions Triple Lock, Andy Burnham has shown us up. Yes, there’s a lot less to his reform than meets the eye — and it won’t come close to funding his expansion of the state. But on the conservative principle that “if something cannot go on for ever then it must stop“, the Labour Party has got ahead of us. To borrow Liz Truss’s line about cheese imports: THAT. IS. A. DISGRACE. Certainly, it helps the Prime Minister maintain the illusion that he’s got a grip on our public finances.
And so to the purpose of Kemi Badenoch’s speech tomorrow. Unlike last year, it is not to present herself to the nation. She’s already done that — and with considerable success. Nor is it to present her party to the nation — because, until we honestly contend with our record in government, it simply won’t work. Rather, the goal should be to confront the nation with the truth about our public finances.
On the 1st October, UK 30-year bond yields breached the 6 per cent mark — a dire warning that we’re flirting with fiscal catastrophe. Luckily for Andy Burnham and his Chancellor John Healey, the money markets are more worried about France at the moment. Still, there’s no comfort to be drawn from the alarming spike in French bond yields. Right now, it’s the spectacle of nationwide riots and the rise of Marine Le Pen that’s spooking the bond vigilantes, but with public finances stretched to breaking point across the western world it wouldn’t take much to put the UK economy back in the spotlight. We’d just need to be seen as the biggest loser from a diesel supply crisis, or a Russian attack on European infrastructure, or simply a Budget that fails to calm market jitters.
So instead of chasing popularity, Kemi Badenoch should use her speech tomorrow to spell out the threat to our national solvency both in the long term and more immediately. I want her to explain why it is that Burnham isn’t just peddling an unaffordable fantasy that will never come true, but, undermining our national credibility in the process. Whereas the Prime Minister’s speech last week was warm, fuzzy and full of hope, hers should be a cold blast of reality.
Can she expect brutal honesty to be rewarded with an immediate boost to Conservative poll ratings? Not at all. But Badenoch can ask the public to remember her words when, sooner or later, the proverbial hits the fan.
She shouldn’t go the full anti-Burnham, of course. Like Pandora’s Box, a shred of hope must remain. And by that I mean a programme to pull Britain back from the brink. There’s what we’d do in government, of course — but Badenoch should also outline an emergency plan that a Conservative opposition could help a Labour government to implement if the crunch comes before the next election. One can easily imagine what Labour — and especially Reform — would make of such an offer. But so what? It’s time to put nation before uniparty.
I’ll leave you with another hard truth. There’s not much that Kemi Badenoch (or anyone else) can do to change Tory poll ratings — at least not by the margin required to win a general election. Writing 30,000 words on conservative principles, while worthy, will barely move the dial. A spoof Bayeux Tapestry, while fun, is equally irrelevant. Rather, the last forty years of British political history tells us that only a political earthquake can shift the narrative: Black Wednesday, for instance; or the Iraq War; or the Global Financial Crisis; or Brexit; or Partygate; or the Boriswave; or the Mini Budget; or the Starmer disaster; or, most recently, the Reform omni-shambles.
It’s impossible for a party leader to just make something like that happen (except, that is, by their own extreme incompetence). What Badenoch can do, however, is prepare for the next upheaval if — or, rather, when — it happens.