30 May 2025

Kemi Badenoch is in a hole – and she keeps digging

Her tragic performance is the only thing cheering up Labour MPs.

Labour MPs have a lot to be depressed about. The euphoria as more than 400 of them swept into parliament in July dissipated at a speed as historic as their election win. Not only has the party dropped into the polls to levels of public support not seen since before the 2019 election, but MPs who entered parliament full of ideals and optimism have had to stomach an endless string of policy announcements – from scrapping the winter fuel allowance to disability benefit cuts to the tightening of migration rules – that feel fundamentally at odds with what they went into politics to achieve. (These two things, one Labour MP wryly suggested, might in fact be connected.)

But there is one thing that keeping Labour spirits from collapsing entirely. And that is the Leader of the Opposition.

“She cheers us up every week,” one Labour MP said of Kemi Badenoch’s sparring matches against Keir Starmer at PMQs. Another pointed out how visibly more relaxed the Prime Minister seems in his weekly Commons performances, loosening up enough to tell jokes that actually land and at times looking like he even enjoys the experience.

The list of frustrations Conservative MPs have with their leader is growing – but right at the top are her efforts at PMQs. Badenoch frequently chooses to ignore the headline issue of the day to focus either on pet projects inspired by the right-wing Twittersphere (the details of which sometimes come back to haunt her), or on areas where justifiable criticism of Labour opens her up to counter-attacks about the Tories’ own record. She seems incapable of taking advantage of moments where Starmer is obviously under pressure from his own MPs, and – as last week’s reaction (or lack thereof) to the announcement of a U-turn on winter fuel cuts showed – has an uncanny ability to miss open goals.

Tories – even those critical to Badenoch – are quick to point out the impossibility of her situation, attempting to rebuild a party from the ashes when there is an insurgent challenger on the right consuming all the airtime. There is general consensus that no one in that position would be doing well at this stage in a parliament, and that the party needs time to recover.

But at the same time, Badenoch is making a bad situation worse – from interviews where the main takeaway is that she hates sandwiches to the recent row over use of a private car and driver as when she was trade secretary. (The fact Badenoch is reported to once again be unhappy about the car arrangements provided to her as opposition leader is, one Tory source despaired, an unforced error of “galactic proportions”.) Overall, the mood is one of dismay that, the “box office” firebrand who was meant to terrify Starmer has proved such a disappointment.

Labour figures, however, had a very different perception of Badenoch before she became leader. Contrary to what was breathlessly written in Telegraph columns, the candidate they really feared was James Cleverly, who was considered “the most dangerous opponent” for a variety of reasons: his likeability within the party and ability to unite the Tories and boost morale after a defeat; his skill at media; and his pitch to bring the Conservatives towards the centre ground, rather than chasing Reform.

One Labour MP recalls a “palpable sense of elation” in the Commons tearoom when the shock announcement came that Cleverly had been knocked out of the contest (thanks to a vote-swapping debacle), leaving Badenoch to face Robert Jenrick in a head-to-head of Conservative members. The relief was felt among both Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs that the biggest threat to them had been eliminated.

Jenrick is viewed as the de facto successor if Badenoch is ousted – a point Starmer made at PMQs recently by congratulating those who had run the London marathon and joking that the shadow justice secretary was “still running”. Labour MPs have mixed views of Jenrick’s chances of reviving the official opposition. One suggested he might be a bit “slicker” on TV, and Jenrick’s work ethic was mentioned (he’s been all over the country since the election, doing hundreds of events with Conservative groups while Badenoch’s reputation for being “lazy” is only growing). But no one thought this would be enough to solve the Tories’ problems.

That’s in part because the biggest problem for the Conservatives is Reform – and another leader attempting to be “Farage-lite” will do nothing to neutralise that threat. And it’s a threat, of course, that applies to Labour too.

Labour MPs began noticing the shift in Starmer’s attitude even before the Prime Minister said he considered Reform to be the government’s main opposition. Planted questions at PMQs have enabled Starmer to take aim at Farage, on issues ranging from workers’ rights to green jobs, and he rarely misses an opportunity to connect Reform to the economic calamity of Liz Truss. The Prime Minister gave an entire speech on that subject on Thursday, accusing Farage of “the same fantasy” as Truss after the Reform leader announced a slate of policies earlier in the week that would add tens of billions to government spending. Farage, Starmer argued, was “Truss 2.0”. The Lib Dems have gone for the even catchier line “Trussonomics on steroids”.

Where does all this leave Badenoch? As effectively irrelevant, I was told by a Labour source – which could be both a blessing and a curse. “We’re torn between wanting her to stay because of how bad she is, and hoping the Conservatives improve because that might put some pressure on Reform.”

It’s unclear what form such improvement could take. It’s hard to see who on the opposition benches could be a leader who takes the Tories back into government (the names being floated – by both Labour and Tory figures – have only been in parliament a matter of months). There was doubt among Labour MPs that Cleverly would ever make it in a vote among the Tory membership (speculation that might not be accurate, I was told by a Reform source, who wondered whether the exodus of Conservative members to Nigel Farage’s party might have changed the membership so radically Cleverly would have a much better chance now than in October). The suggestion of a Boris Johnson comeback was greeted with laughter (“Good luck to him”).

But even with the lack of options, Labour figures said they expected the Tories to get frustrated and find a way to oust Badenoch, if not by the end of the year then around the time of next May’s local elections. However bad the polls are for Labour, they are worse for the Conservatives, one MP pointed out, flagging the “extinction-level” poll that put the Tories in fourth place. “Kemi is getting nowhere.”