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Q. Was this the speech that’ll win Kemi a snap by-election? A. Er, no

Opposition is a lonely place – but the Tory leader’s big ‘party reset’ event was not only remarkable policy-free, at times it felt more like a few random tweets cut and pasted together, says Joe Murphy

Thursday 16 January 2025 12:25 EST
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Kemi Badenoch meets Jeremy Clarkson in his pub

With history being forged in the cities of Gaza, Kyiv and Washington, it might feel tempting to ignore the tiddling affairs of Lilliput, that abandoned village known in more prosperous days as the Conservative and Unionist Party.

And had you spent an hour in the bland function room where Lilliput’s new mayor delivered a policy-free speech in schoolma’am tones, you would have missed the racier action of Nigel Farage calling for a by-election in Runcorn and Helsby, and reports that Suella Braverman isn’t ruling out defecting to Reform.

However, you would also have missed some pointers to what has been occupying Kemi Badenoch, apart from moist sandwiches, over the past 11 weeks.

Badenoch’s problem is that her party no longer seems to be driving events. Her special dilemma is that she has forsworn the usual solution for opposition parties, which is to rush out new ideas and announce them as policies.

“Our country is tired of politicians promising the earth but never having a plan to deliver it,” she said – which translates as, give me more time. Voters felt they had “seen it all before”.

“Seen it all before” could also describe a large chunk of the 2,700-word speech, much familiar from her leadership campaign. As trailed, she acknowledged that recent Conservative governments (though not Kemi herself) had made some pretty dire blunders.

But there were some interesting pointers towards a radical platform if Badenoch, who had picked a Thatcher-blue outfit for the occasion, survives to the next election.

“We think we are rich,” she said quietly, and you knew bad news was coming. “But we are living off the inheritance that previous generations left behind.”

Intergenerational fairness was a thoughtful theme of the speech. She would end “quick-fix” solutions designed “to make our lives more comfortable” at the expense of the next generation. It would mean “the kind of tough, soul-searching conversations we’re not having right now”.

But other sections of the speech felt like tweets assembled together. According to Kemi, the Conservatives had been “told to be quiet about rape gangs”, which is odd because it seemed pretty clear that what really happened is grown-up Tories chose to be measured, out of a sense of public responsibility.

There was concern about immigration and taxes being too high, but no concrete ideas of how to make them fall. Some spending was “wasteful”, but she didn’t say where the axe should fall. Effort should be rewarded, she said, which sounds promising, but really could mean anything at this stage.

There were a few good soundbites – Keir Starmer was a “legalist, not a leader” – but no tubthumpery to get the audience excited. Indeed, when she finished, the audience seemed unsure if the speech had ended or if it was a pause for applause. They looked round nervously. When Kemi said nothing else for a while, they finally jumped up to give a standing ovation.

Badenoch won favour with the press by inviting newspapers rather than the BBC to have the first question. It didn’t go well. Would she back Starmer if he sacked Rachel Reeves? “His woman problem is not my responsibility,” answered the Tory leader, bizarrely. A female reporter asked why the chancellor’s gender was relevant.

Asked why her speech was so laden with misery, Badenoch said that after the worst Tory defeat in 200 years, “I don’t think the public will start trusting us if I turn up having a great time”.

Farage, she said, was doing well because he had “had a head start” over her – but “let’s see where we are in a few years”.

Hmm… a by-election in Runcorn and Helsby might give us an answer sooner than she expects.

Earlier, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey made a speech about world leadership, and offered a handy tip for Starmer on how to out-negotiate President Trump. “We have leverage,” confided Ed with a knowing twinkle. “We have something Trump desperately wants…”

The Chagos Islands? The NHS? No. “A state visit!” revealed the Lib Dem leader with the pizzazz of Mike Myers as Dr Evil demanding “1 MILLION dollars” ransom not to destroy the world.

Apparently, in return for “a banquet with the King”, Trump would seize Russian assets to arm Ukraine. You might feel a bit sceptical that the new president would reframe relations with Vladimir Putin for the sake of meat-and-two with Charles, but Ed believed it was a “small price” for victory.

As is the current fad, Davey spoke in front of a backdrop of supporters who nodded obediently while watching the back of his head. To increase their torture, some had handed little signs bearing party slogans to hold at chest height. The strain was too much for a couple of bearers, whose signs sagged and wobbled after 20 minutes, but a chap in a yellow tie must have had the arm muscles of Geoff Capes because he kept it up for the full hour, including media questions.

Davey’s main policy push was to rejoin the EU’s customs union by 2030 and thereby “turbocharge the economy”. What he didn’t acknowledge, but Theresa May could verify, is that the EU are tougher negotiators than President Trump.

So, he was asked by Sky News, would Britain copy the EU’s tariffs of up to 45 per cent on electric cars? “That’s a really good question,” said Ed, before not really answering it.

That’s the tricky thing about customs unions: they turbocharge trade because everyone follows the rules, and Ed is still unwilling to admit this.

He was sure of one thing: “In the quietness of the Oval Office, he [Trump] will say: ‘That was a smart move by the UK’”, he said.

Two opposition leaders: one with the world on her shoulders, and the other dreaming about leading the world. But there’s another four years before either gets close to power.

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