Kemi Badenoch’s ‘first clanger’ will be what ‘defines her’, says Baroness Davidson

Published

7 months ago

November 29, 2024

admin

Kemi Badenoch will be “defined” by the first “clanger” she makes as Tory leader, Baroness Davidson has said.

The Tory peer said Ms Badenoch, who replaced Rishi Sunak earlier this month, had to be “humble and work bloody hard” in her role following the Conservatives’ worst-ever general election performance.

Speaking to Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Baroness Davidson criticised the Tory leader for choosing to give a speech at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) on the impact of Labour’s decision to increase employers’ national insurance contributions in the budget.

👉 Click here to listen to Electoral Dysfunction on your podcast app 👈

During the speech, Ms Badenoch refused to say whether she would reverse the national insurance hike – despite calling it a “tax on jobs”.

Baroness Davidson told Rigby: “If I was in charge of the UK Tory party right now, if I wanted to do a business speech, I wouldn’t have done it at the CBI.

“I would have done it at the Federation of Small Businesses – the people that are most affected by this national insurance change.

“I would have been damn sure what my policy was going to be and what it was that I was going to be able to tell them.”

The Tory peer, who led the Scottish Conservatives from 2011 to 2019, said the job of an Opposition leader was to “go out and hustle” for votes.

She added: “It’s to speak to people… it’s to apologise for the stuff we got wrong, it’s to show people that we’ve changed, and it’s to start putting together slowly, bit by bit, a policy platform that can lead us into the next election in five years’ time.”

Baroness Davidson said there had been “so many open goals” for Ms Badenoch to take against the prime minister, including over his decision to scrap winter fuel payments for the majority of pensioners.

“Why is she not going off and speaking to pensioners?” Baroness Davidson said.

“We’ve got great stories to tell [on the winter fuel allowance]. Now, as we’re coming into this cold snap, she could have been doing something about that.”

She added: “She can’t be high-handed about this and she can’t be lazy. She has to be humble and she has to work bloody hard!”

Asked whether she thought Ms Badenoch was “lazy”, Baroness Davidson said: “I don’t know what her personal tempo of operations is and how she runs her office, she might be doing tonnes of things that we’re not seeing, but there’s a problem in that. We’re not seeing them.

“There is a massive klaxon going off in my head here because if Labour have worked out that she’s not defining herself, it doesn’t take an awful lot of steps to decide, ‘Well, we can define her ourselves’.

“And it will not be in a way that is helpful to the Conservative Party. They’ll wait for the first clanger and the first clanger is what will define her.”

Politics

Latest polling says if an election was held tomorrow Reform UK would win a majority

Published

6 hours ago

June 21, 2025

admin

Latest polling says if an election was held tomorrow Reform UK would win a majority

Since the local elections Reform UK has had no shortage of good polls.

But a new one suggests Nigel Farage’s party has a chance not only of winning the next election, but of claiming a decent Commons majority, too.

In February, Reform topped a Sky News/YouGov poll for the first time, with Nigel Farage’s party edging in front on 25%, Labour pushed into second on 24%, with the Tories on 21%.

But a fresh one from Ipsos puts Reform on 34%, nine points ahead of Labour on 25%, with the Conservatives a distant third on 15%.

While the other parties are flatlining, Reform appears to be pushing boundaries.

Were these figures to be replicated across the country at a general election, with every constituency behaving the same way, then Reform could win as many as 340 seats, giving it a majority of 30, Sky News analysis suggests.

Labour could be reduced to 176 seats, down 236 on last year’s election, while the Tories would hit a record low of 12 seats.

But polling should always be taken with a pinch of salt and with the firm acknowledgement that there is not an election coming any time soon.

Conservative backbenchers might also tell you publicly that opinion polls are notoriously difficult to translate into seat numbers because voting percentages in individual constituencies can vary hugely from the overall average.

But the truth is that the symbolism of Reform UK topping another poll is likely to be noticed by MPs from all parties, especially backbench Conservatives who have actively been hoping their leader, Kemi Badenoch, can help them climb the polls and bring the party back into public favour.

Politics is a brutal game and when it comes to toppling underwhelming party leaders, the Tories are more ruthless than most. One wonders how many of these polls Mrs Badenoch’s party will allow her to endure.

This poll is also a warning to Labour.

As the party approaches a year since its major victory, it will not have much to celebrate if these numbers are anything to go by.

According to this survey, only 19% are satisfied with the job Sir Keir Starmer is doing as prime minister, with 73% dissatisfied.

And the figure of 25% of voters intending to vote Labour is a level not seen since October 2019.

While abstract to much of the public, polling can often shape not only the chatter inside Westminster but how and when plots by MPs begin.

For Reform UK, this is a much-needed morale boost after a surprise resignation by their former Chairman Zia Yusuf, and then an almost immediate U-turn back into the party.

And Kemi Badenoch – who said during her leadership campaign that the Conservatives needed to go back to first principles and that this would take time – will be wondering, seven-and-a-half months after winning the leadership, how much time she really has left.

Ipsos interviewed a representative probability sample of 1,180 British adults aged 18+, via the Ipsos UK KnowledgePanel. Data was collected between 30 May-4 June 2025.