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Rumour has it that Naughty Nige’s rivals are gearing up for another Clacton by-election amid speculation that the standards inquiry into his dubiously-legal #5m gift is nearing its conclusion. And, whilst the Reform leader sticks to his Monty-Python-esq ‘wafer-thin’ defence that this is a ‘personal matter and no-one else’s business’ we can rest assured this one will be contested by more than just a man with a bin on his head.
If found guilty, and if parliament agrees with a penalty of more than ten days suspension, a recall petition requiring a mere 10% of the constituency would signal another trip to the ballot box. One that Kensington Kemi is whetting her lips for.
The Tories are flattered by their status as the official party of opposition but, following a relatively successful party conference, things have definitely changed for the better for their leader and this creates an opportunity to attempt to reassert themselves. However, it cannot be ignored that the faltering Farage did actually increase his majority by over 4000 last time out and gained almost 65% of the vote, so any potential contest is going to be hard-fought.
Her party conference pamphlet entitled ‘The Right Way’ – a blatant nod to Thatcher’s 1976 ‘The Right Approach’ document – set out Badenoch’s key guiding principles, claiming her to be the champion of common sense. It seeks to crack down on benefit claimants, control what the jobless can spend money on, removes the family home from any IHT and promises to build an Israeli-like ‘Britannia Shield’ of impenetrable missiles and drones. Hhhhmmm.
Personally, even though she polls better than her party, I think it’s too early to talk of a seismic ‘Kemi bounce’. The underlying truth is that in large swathes of the country, the Tories no longer, in reality, exist. They’ve lost the right to Reform and Restore, the centre to the Lib Dems and the left to Labour and the Greens. To make her Conservative party competitive in British politics today, she needs to be more than merely a devotee of the Iron Lady, she needs more serious arguments and policies. Kemi needs an answer to Andy Burnham that doesn’t retreat into the tired soundbite of 20th century cliché and she needs to more visibly reject the far-right’s brand of national populism.
