Kemi Badenoch sinks further into the mire
Illustration by André Carrilho
'Here for the funeral?' asked the man in the seat next to me. Short, stout, bearded, behatted, pot-bellied: he looked just like a garden gnome. We were in the Duchess Theatre, Covent Garden, home of the pre-theatre set menu, luvvie-land. What the gnome called 'the funeral' – and what we might call the 'oooooffft, not again' or the 'should she really have that job?' or the 'why does she keep doing this to herself?' – belonged to Kemi Badenoch, for now the leader of His Majesty's opposition.
The gnome, a retired civil servant, had come in search of Schadenfreude. He was here all the way from Eastbourne, gleeful and triumphant, to watch Badenoch on stage in conversation with the comedian Matt Forde. The live talk would be recorded for Forde's popular podcast The Political Party. 'It's a slow-motion car crash,' said Gnome, widely smiling, before Badenoch had even appeared.
Car crash, funeral, whatever. If you want to understand British politics, know that there are men out there who not only look like a Renaissance woodcut of a mythical mountain-dwelling creature but who will travel one hour and 35 minutes on Southern Rail to watch a politician they hate exchange sensible on stage banter out of pure spite. In Britain, complicated forms of bitterness and political despair play out through evening attendance as light entertainment. I suppose it's better than the way these things resolve themselves in Myanmar. The tickets for Forde-Badenoch cost £26.50: a price Gnome was happy to pay. A flannel-and-cardigan audience settled into their seats around us.
What was Badenoch doing with Forde? It was a deep mystery, much like the continued existence of Emmerdale. Was she doing outreach a few doors down from the Royal Ballet? Are there many votes left for Conservative leaders in the bullseye centre of liberal London, or did one of her aides book her in for the sweet comic grilling months ago, when the Tories weren't finishing fourth in Scottish by-elections on an apocalyptic 6 per cent of the vote?
The move showed ambition, which Badenoch can never be accused of lacking. For every two voters the Conservatives are at risk of losing to Labour or the Liberal Democrats, one exhausted Tory flack told me this week, they haemorrhage five or six to Reform. Badenoch could turn the tide against Nigel Farage right here in the Duchess by talking about herself for 45 minutes in front of an audience of Lib Dems.
Before anything happened, Gnome began a rambling and dirty joke about Nicholas Soames, who I am required by law to tell you is Winston Churchill's grandson. I think Gnome may just have hated Conservative politicians. He said the joke was Forde's, although I have in the past heard it attributed to Sarah Sands, the former editor of the Today programme.
Forde appeared in a shiny blue suit buttoned at the waist, set off by box-fresh white Air Jordans. He was amusing, although his gags appeared to have been printed out on A4 paper and stuck to a box at the front of the stage. Alan Lockey, the Prime Minister's speechwriter, took an indirect pasting. 'Keir Starmer has a weird way with words,' Forde began, before entering a passably nasal Starmer impression: 'I know what it's like to work in a factory… because my dad did it.' Not quite the same thing, is it, as Forde quickly pointed out – you can try this yourself. Pick your most benighted dead relative. 'I know what it's like to get blown up at the Somme… because my great-grandfather did it.' Convincing?
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I was growing impatient for Badenoch. Understatement induces me to say that her leadership has not gone very well so far. Consider a recent defence of Ukraine that she made on one of the Sunday shows: within hours it was clipped, trussed up, lipsticked and used by the Russian embassy for their own propaganda purposes. As a parable, it's pure Badenoch. She wants to do one thing. The opposite happens.
The disintegration has since accelerated. A few days previously Badenoch had given a big speech on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). Imagine you are a right-wing politician fighting off an even more right-wing insurgency that draws all of its energy from promising mass asylum deportations, strong borders, the full Children of Men barbed-wire-and-police-dogs scenario. Would you then promise to leave the ECHR, which effectively stops the government from doing any of that? You might think Badenoch would have made this promise by now.
But in that speech Badenoch effectively said she was going to send a consumer complaint email to the court in Strasbourg with her intention to announce a recommendation she had been advised to consider by someone else about the possibility of maybe, after taking some time to come up with a plan, perhaps or perhaps not leaving the ECHR. Strong stuff. Cask-strength. The speech may keep One Nation Tories happy in the parliamentary Conservative Party while opening a vast steppe for Nigel Farage to graze on. After the speech, Badenoch told the BBC she was going to improve: 'You don't want people to be the very best they're going to be on day one. You want people who are going to get better.' Picture Tony Blair saying that. Or Margaret Thatcher.
To the extent that anything can get better when you are facing the possibility of being leapfrogged in the polls by the Green Party, Badenoch did improve once she settled, in a gold sleeveless blouse and long black skirt, into a low chair opposite Forde.
For one thing, Gnome immediately fell asleep once she began talking. His head drooped first, then his chin settled on his belly. He breathed gently through his round, red nose. Badenoch has been known to induce a similar effect when she posts short-form video content on X, or speaks at Prime Minister's Questions.
What's it like being leader of the opposition, Forde asked. Fascinating, Badenoch said, in a posh, slightly hoarse voice. She compared leading the Tories to Game of Thrones, a show in which most characters she might be compared to are murdered by nasty and treacherous methods. She said she'd received advice from past Tory leaders but not Liz Truss, whom she claimed might have lost Badenoch's phone number. 'But she's so good with numbers,' quipped Forde. To laughter, Badenoch poked Forde: 'Do an impression of me.' He mouthed the air before refusing. We were here to see the nice man who wrote Politically Homeless, not Jim Davidson.
Badenoch condemned nationalisation, a Fabian idea Nigel Farage has taken a spooky interest in recently. 'Who would want a politician running a business?' Badenoch asked the now-silent audience, raising the uncomfortable question: who would want this Conservative Party running anything?
They're not a party right now. They're a bag of snakes. Badenoch was right about Game of Thrones. Some of the material being shopped around to undermine her in Westminster is truly Targaryen in its uncompromising brutality. Leaks that make you shudder at the possibilities of human betrayal, even when the stakes are low: taking over the leadership of Britain's third most- popular political party.
'I've chosen a very, very difficult path,' said Kemi Badenoch as the funeral ended. Gnome slept on soundly. Forde grinned. She wasn't being funny.
[See also: Laughing at the populist right is not a political strategy]
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