Badenoch convinced Tory conference - but what about voters?
Right as the Conservative leader stood up to speak, the Murrayfield pitch was being ripped up and replaced. Diggers and tractors tore up the grass ready to start afresh.
Inside, Ms Badenoch was about to do the same to her party.
Could the workmen here be dropping hints at the Tory leader that it is time to tear the party up and start again?
"The speech isn't about looking back," she said, defiantly.
"It's about the future. Our future. I am renewing the party."
Renewal became the buzzword of Badenoch's speech. The phrase lingered amongst MSPs and activists I spoke to on the way out of the hall.
One MSP told me that this was a party ready to fight. They were on the brink of disaster but they were not going to go down without a battle.
And they believed the Conservative leader hit the perfect tone.
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But the questions are still inescapable: will her plan work - and is it enough to stop Nigel Farage's Reform UK demolishing the Tories in Holyrood and Westminster?
In her speech, Ms Badenoch acknowledged she had a fight on her hands. And she is not wrong.
Projections for the Scottish Parliament election next year suggests Reform could win at least 10 MSPs, while the Tories lose around half of their seats, falling to around 15 MSPs.
In May next year, voters go to the polls and that is bad news for Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay unless Ms Badenoch's renewal can come quickly.
Ms Badenoch met a score of Scottish journalists after her keynote address.
In the packed room overlooking the Murrayfield pitch constructions, Ms Badenoch said her eyes were on the long approach - 2029.
And she was adamant she was no longer looking to the past. The Tories, she told us, needed to move on from the turmoil of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.
The policy decisions of her predecessors, though, are haunting.
Decent press room views from the Scottish Tory conference. @HannahMargBrown and I are at Murrayfield for Kemi Badenoch's speech. pic.twitter.com/zKrCRaBcmV — Rebecca McCurdy (@_RebeccaMcCurdy) June 13, 2025
Ms Badenoch was joined by the Scottish Tory leader for the packed press huddle. Together, they displayed a united front.
Asked how long they spoke to each other, she said: "We WhatsApp." Mr Findlay jumped in to joke: "It's a joint support group."
Ms Badenoch brushed it off as a joke but she admitted that being Conservative leader was full on.
Perhaps there is a truth to both of their statements. Being leader of a party fighting for survival is an almighty task, and one that most would not volunteer to do.
She was firm that defectors had no negative impact on her party: if they would rather go to Reform or the Liberal Democrats, then they were never real Tories anyway and the party was better off without them, she told us.
That may be her view, but it's a dangerous one for a party on the brink and desperate to scoop up every single vote.
I asked her about Jamie Greene, the former Tory MSP who defected to the Liberal Democrats. He referred to Ms Badenoch's visit as "Kemi-geddon", arguing the party was a sinking ship that was losing support on an apocalyptic scale.
She said: "Am I right in thinking that Jamie Greene that supported the SNP on the gender row? He's never been a Conservative. How anybody could have supported what was obviously a mad piece of legislation and call themselves a Conservatives is beyond me."
An awkward statement of Conservative unity, given two other current Tory MSPs - Jackson Carlaw and Sandesh Gulhane - backed the Gender Recognition Reform Bill in 2023.
Ms Badenoch seemed re-energised. The awkward exchanges with the press and public were long gone.
But has it come too late and it is Kemi-geddon after all?
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