Is Kemi Badenoch kaput?

The Tory leader promised to do be someone who put substance before messaging, but has ended up with the same headline-seeking gimmicks and light-on-detail policies as usual, writes John Rentoul

In her first speech to the Conservative conference on Sunday, Kemi Badenoch promised “politics done differently”. There would be, she promised, “no more making the announcement first and working out the policy detail second”.

She contradicted herself before she even delivered her speech, because that morning she had been interviewed on the BBC. “Where would those people all go?” asked Laura Kuenssberg about the 150,000 people that the Tories had promised to deport every year.

“Not here,” was Badenoch’s answer. Pressed for a fuller answer, she said: “I’m tired of us asking all of these irrelevant questions about where should they go – they will go back to where they should do or another country, but they should not be here.”

The Conservatives seem content to carry on with the same behaviour that brought them to their present plight (Reuters)

So much for policy detail.

The Conservatives then briefed The Times in advance of another policy being announced today: a £5,000 cash handout to young people on starting their first job, to be put into a savings account to help to buy a home.

This gimmick is from the party whose leader said in April: “I’m resisting the pressure to chase headlines like Starmer or Farage. I’m building something solid.” Not only did this look very much like chasing a headline, but the message of the policy cut 180 degrees against the bigger message from Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, which is that a Conservative government would cut spending by a suspiciously precise £47bn a year.

Facing one way, Stride promised prudence; facing the other, he spent £3bn a year of those savings on a subsidy to young people. As for “building something solid”, the policy is as rickety as a house front on a film set, because if most first-time buyers have an extra £5,000 to spend, that will simply put up house prices.

Which is a shame, because Badenoch appeared to be sincere in wanting to do politics differently. She took her time over the decision to say that Britain should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). She commissioned a paper on the subject from David Wolfson, the shadow attorney general, which runs to 185 pages with 454 footnotes.

The paper arrived at the conclusion that Nigel Farage first thought of, but at least it did so after a serious consideration of all the complexities. Why seemingly throw that serious policy work away with a headline-seeking pledge to deport 150,000 a year and no idea where they would go?

Badenoch’s tragedy is that she is trapped, having won the Tory leadership at possibly the worst moment in the party’s long history. She offered a plain-speaking, fresh approach that could have renewed the party at any other time, but instead faces a losing battle for relevance. She had no choice but to try to win headlines in the next day’s newspapers because otherwise no one would know that she and her party were still there.

Hence, the deportation plan, with the added topspin that it would be like Donald Trump’s ICE – the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency that is picking people up off the streets of America. And hence the giveaway gimmick from a party that has only one way back, which is to be more fiscally responsible than either Labour or Reform.

Instead of doing politics differently, the Conservatives seem determined to carry on with the same behaviour that brought them to their present bathymetric plight. Undeliverable promises, fiscal irresponsibility and repeated changes of leader. Instead of doing some hard work on policy detail, which could be of some use to the country, even if it is too late to save the party, too many Tory MPs seem to be plotting to replace Badenoch as soon as the rules allow, when her first year in post expires next month.

I think the Conservatives are doomed anyway, but they might as well be doomed with dignity, instead of confirming the public’s low opinion of them as they wait to be replaced by Reform at the next election.