The relaxed demeanour of the Tory leader suggests she is just relieved that things aren’t worse than they could be
It’s common knowledge that Kemi Badenoch is not an early morning person. Or an any time of morning person. Look at her in the wrong way and you’re likely to catch an earful.
So it must have taken a lot of persuading from Conservative central office to get her out and about at 9am. But needs must. All week it has been Reform setting the news agenda, with three press conferences in as many days, and the Tories have barely had a look in. You could almost have forgotten that, for the time being, at any rate, the Conservatives are still the official opposition. Their relevance diminishes by the day.
The invitation sent out on Wednesday had said access would be strictly limited and that only one journalist per outlet would be accredited. So you would have imagined the venue to be the usual small room in the bowels of a right-of-centre thinktank.
Imagine the surprise then, to find the location was outdoors on the South Bank in London. A place where literally anyone could – and did – turn up. It was almost as if they didn’t actually want anyone to come. This was more the kind of event a party puts on in the fourth week of an election campaign when it already knows it is going to lose badly.
