The Conservative leader is literally leading from the front, with one of her highest results in our league table. But the ‘Badenoch bounce’ remains about her, and getting any translation into a rise for the party is still gruelling ongoing work
Churchill fought a war having argued for years that Britain was economically and militarily unprepared. Starmer is trying not to fight a war arguing via his Chancellor that never before has so much been promised for defence. For so little return when it matters, it seems.
President Trump is not getting universal support for this action in America, but there will be voices inside the very system fighting to survive in Iran, telling its Western opponents, ‘if you want change, act now.’
Take a lesson from my driving instructor: ‘Take space to make space.’ The art of being heard by people who don’t want to listen takes determined calm not frustration. It requires seizing the moment, a tactical swallow of humility and then to “KBO” re-stating your case.
Confidence within a party is not a guarantee of confidence in a party. Indeed there is a whiff of a ‘crisis of confidence’ coming from the wider party mirroring this time last year. Any hint of complacency about where they are now, would be politically suicidal.
Henry leaves ConservativeHome with our gratitude and our very best wishes for the future.
The Conservatives should not be intimidated or cowed by a good week for Reform but look at the lessons to be drawn, exploit the weaknesses – because they exist – or better just keep reminding people they are far from dead, and very much still in the game.
The Conservative party is feeling both bullish and more confident, whilst completely aware that the brand, if not the leader needs a huge amount of work, and that persuasion is now less about appeasing the angry but persuading the indifferent.
There are political advantages of having a deeply unpopular and mortally wounded and weakened individual struggling on in the top job. Maybe that’s the Tory plan. It’s a bit party before country, but then Starmer is the hypocritical expert there.
Mandelson may end up dragging Starmer down with him, and Badenoch can take a lot of the credit, but on the ground, on the doorstep and in the streets of places far from the drama of Westminster, no committed Conservative must think this alone will put them back in play.
L P Hartley once wrote “the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there”. Everyone in politics is trying to express the same, but it might be an idea for all to visit it occasionally and say ‘you know what? We got that wrong’.
Breaking the doom-loop of depressing political narrative – harnessed and driven by parties’ agendas- to look different, sound different and offer something new, would, in fact, be a welcome change.
The strong suspicion is Starmer bought his ticket to China by his government putting their thumb on the scales on a number of issues where the eventual outcome was of benefit to the Chinese. Moreover will any deal actually be worth what it promises?
Badenoch insists the Tories aren’t going to walk off the pitch or pivot to the left, but they should avoid looking complacent. Jenrick’s challenge should be met not with tit-for-tat soundbites but treating it as the mother of all ‘red team’ exercises.