The logic is sound. If you want, and I know Team Badenoch do, to persuade people you are changed, and new, and departing from the recent past, newbies in new roles is one way of putting that message in the front of the shop window.
He’s simply spoiling for a fight with Labour. He seems to be cheerfully revelling in being a Tory attack dog. What we need is the whole shadow cabinet pack hunting efficiently.
So underwhelming has her tenure been so far that the most commonly discussed question about her leadership has become not if she goes, but when – and who replaces her.
If CCHQ has a smoking gun to substantiate the claim that Reform UK’s membership tracker is fake, its handling of the story is merely woeful. If not…
Many commentators would make the obvious leap that we must move to the right and find an insurgent populist figure to take command of our party. But that is not what the US election tells us.
The last election was an historic rout, but also a reminder that past performance is no guarantee of future events. Imagine telling anyone in January 2020 that not only would Labour be back next time, but with one of the largest majorities ever.
She might bomb, of course, but greatness is more likely
Is this a Shadow Cabinet to break from the last fourteen years, that shows voters we understand why we loathed? Or does it show just how much loyalty matters to Badenoch?
Badenoch has a grasp of the task ahead, and the gumption, when many would flee the scene, to get us back into government. We wish her all the best. We have work to do.
Kemi Badenoch thanks her family and Rishi Sunak, the former Prime Minister.
The Chairman of the 1922 Committee hailed Badenoch as the party’s fourth female leader, and first black one.
Kemi Badenoch has been elected Leader of the Conservative Party. She defeated Robert Jenrick in the final members’ round of the leadership election by 57 per cent to 44 per cent, on a 73 per cent turnout.
Given the minimal gains and the significant risks of leaving the Convention, when Robert Jenrick claims, “It’s leave [the ECHR] or die for our party,” the reality is the opposite.
If they are serious about reversing Britain’s decline, Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick will have to have a few large, difficult, and totemic fights with their own party – a lesson learnt from Machiavelli.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are welcome to copy this policy if they wish. But they won’t because they don’t believe in aspiration. We do.