Talking about the welfare bill in front of the cameras, the Conservative leader rages against her inner futility
T
he sign behind the podium read: “The Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch MP, leader of HM opposition.” It felt like a reminder. Not just to the handful of Conservative loyalists who had bothered to turn up for the speech at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in London. But to Kemi herself.
Badenoch and her party are on the verge of an existential breakdown. Every week they seem to slide further and further into irrelevance. The question is no longer whether the Tories can present themselves as a credible government in waiting in four years’ time; it’s whether they will have become extinct by then. And whatever happens, Kemi will almost certainly not still be around as leader.
But Kemi isn’t going quietly. This was to be her second keynote speech in a week. The only trouble is that no one is really listening. Seven days ago she was in Scotland to announce her party’s intention to resume drilling for oil and gas in the North Sea. Only she might as well not have bothered. None of the news channels thought it worth their while to broadcast what she had to say. She didn’t even rate a footnote in the lunchtime bulletins. Because what the Tories have to say no longer matters. Why waste time on something that is never going to happen?
