Washed up party? All hope is not lost for Kemi and the Tories

You could get odds of 18/1 against the Conservatives winning a majority at the next General Election. You know, I might just have some of that.

I won’t put my Thomas Pink shirt on it, it’s early days. But it’s well worth a punt. Those odds flatter the Conservatives’ opponents.

The perception is that the Tories are washed up. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said as much in her Labour conference speech, calling them “entirely irrelevant”.

The latest YouGov poll shows them in fourth place for both share of the vote and for seats won. Ipsos has them third with 14 per cent of the electorate intending to vote Conservative at the next General Election. Labour is on 22 per cent and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK out in front on 34 per cent.

But this is a snapshot of how the country would vote if there was an election tomorrow. There won’t be. Starmer doesn’t have to go to the country until August 21, 2029, if he doesn’t want to.

By then, who knows what the political landscape will look like?

Danny Kruger, the Tory MP who recently defected to Reform, declared: “The Conservatives are over.” The brand had become “toxic”, he said.

Kruger added: “The rule of our time in office was failure. Bigger government, social decline, lower wages, higher taxes and less of what ordinary people actually wanted.”

He’s right on every count – except the assertion that the Conservatives are over. They are led now by Kemi Badenoch, a firebrand when she was positioning herself for a tilt at the leadership but no more than a glowing ember since she won.

Why is that? Why has she not flayed the failing Prime Minister at his weekly ordeal of PMQs? Not until she held Keir Starmer’s feet to the fire over Lord Mandelson’s appointment as Ambassador to Washington, even though Mandy had been a close friend of convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, did she earn her party’s respect as an inquisitor.

Next week will mark Badenoch’s first big test as Tory leader. She has to convince the party faithful that she has a plan to save the country; that she has the energy and focus to win a General Election; but first and foremost, that she is a Conservative.

It’s not a given, you see, that the leader of the Conservative Party is a bona fide Tory. Remember David Cameron? He was a Liberal by instinct, as Liberal as Nick Clegg with whom he went into coalition.

Boris Johnson was a closet Liberal, who helped to sway the vote on Brexit by coming down on the side of Out in his column in the Telegraph. He had written another version of the piece – this time opting to remain in the EU.

He claimed he did it to clarify his thoughts on the argument. It is just as likely that he did it to clarify his thoughts on where the main chance lay; whether endorsing Leave or Remain would best enhance his bid for the party leadership.

Then there was Theresa May, a wishy-washy Conservative at best. And that toe-curling dance – and yes, the leopard print shoes, too – belonged at the Liberal conference, not the Tory one.

Politicians such as Cameron and Johnson do not choose their party out of conviction. They base their choice on who can win and help them to further their ambitions. And so you end up with impostors, 3D-printed frauds.

Badenoch must convince the Tory faithful she is no such thing. And she has to do it while keeping her powder dry. Party members probably want her to attack Labour and weigh into Reform.

She might prefer to watch those two tear each other apart from the sidelines. For this stage of the UK political cycle is the phoniest of phony wars. Why try to unseat Starmer when his own followers seem certain to do it themselves?

And when they do, will there be time for Labour to regroup before an election?

Nor does she have to turn her guns on Nigel Farage. He is the charismatic leader of a collection of nobodies. He has changed the mood in the country – but it might well be the Tories who reap the benefit.

Prime Ministers must delegate. They cannot also be Chancellor, or Home Secretary, or Foreign Secretary. So under Farage, who will be? Go on, name one of those no-marks you would trust to run a whelk stall.

Voters are not daft. They will vote Reform at by-elections, they will give them councils to run. But No. 10? I doubt it.

So quiet has Badenoch been over the last few months that many are still puzzling over what she stands for. There was no need to hurry. She knows that the country has not yet forgiven the party for 14 years of rudderless in-fighting, chaos and ineptitude.

She might also have been following Napoleon’s principle of “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”. Since gaining power 14 months ago, Keir Starmer has had to manage one cock-up after another, some of his own making.

So here’s what she must say when she stands up to give her speech in Manchester:-

She must tackle immigration. Tough but fair must be the Tories’ approach. Labour, and Starmer in particular, have no appetite for the measures that will be necessary to stop the influx of illegal migrants.

And Farage is digging himself into a pit of despair. Some of his proposals would be unfair and unjust and will only win the votes of the far Right. By positioning themselves correctly, the Tories can burgle votes from both of them.

She must confront Rachel Reeves, the economically dyslexic Chancellor who aches for growth but taxes almost to extinction the only people who can make it happen, the country’s entrepreneurs and investors.

Spend less to tax less is the message. Reeves is coming back for more in her next Budget – targeting pensions, homes and savings. Badenoch must pledge to review public spending, especially welfare, pay off debt and not to raid the wealth of families.

She must slap down the idiotic Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Oil and gas fields in the North Sea must be fully exploited to give us cheaper energy to power our homes and businesses and save 1,000 jobs that are being lost every week in the industry.

It makes no sense, she should say, to wind down drilling in the North Sea in the crusade for green energy, then import oil and gas to meet our needs.

Badenoch has an open goal gaping before her. If she doesn’t score, William Hill has her at only 17/20 to survive as leader beyond 2026.

Waiting in the wings is Robert Jenrick, who kindly saved Richard Desmond from a tax bill of up to £50 million on his £1 billion  development on the former Westferry printing site on the Isle of Dogs. Jenrick is 11/8 to succeed Badenoch if she is toppled.

Now is the time for Badenoch to show her true colours. Go, girl.

*****

They want to use my home for a film location. That’s cool, I thought. Imagine seeing your house on the telly, with actors lounging in your armchairs, or sipping wine in your kitchen.

Or committing a bloody murder on your parquet floor for Inspector Whatsisname to solve. Okay, so maybe there’s a down side.

But the upside could be £3,000 a day. Yes, three grand. A day! But do I really want a film crew tramping through my property, setting up their cameras, scratching my floors, moving my stuff, just so that I can “play a part in the exciting world of film, TV, commercials and photo shoots,” as the flyer puts it?

Apparently, all I have to do is register with an outfit called Locations Direct, and it doesn’t matter what kind of property I live in. They are looking for all sorts – “from stylish apartments to characterful family homes and everything in between.”

Really? So the wonky cupboard door in the kitchen makes no difference; or the new boiler that still has its pipes exposed; or the sofa that has seen better days but hasn’t been replaced because the grandson will only wreck the new one too?

It is a popular area, ours, for TV folk. A couple of weeks ago, they sealed off one end of our road to do some filming. And only yesterday, we walked through a local park to meet the grandson coming out of school on his birthday and had to pick our way through the chaos of a film set.

Everyone working there looked about 18. Not an age at which you might expect them to care for your carpets. Remember the hissy fit TV cook James Martin threw a few months ago when his own film crew caused damage at his place. “This is my f***ing home,” he raged at the producer. And Martin was the star, so what chance would I have?

Anyway, this crew in the park steered us away from the action, though the grandson managed to get a peek. “They’ve got fire, Grandpa. With real flames,” he reported from the Palladian mansion where the cameras were rolling.

So, should I register? It might be worth a try.  I may even get a part. Maybe I could persuade them to let me emerge from the paddling pool in the garden with my wet shirt clinging to my taut, manly torso,  à la Colin Firth.

I’d have to run it past Madame first,  of course. I think I know what the answer would be. She wouldn’t even have to say “Non”. Just a look would do it.

*****

The Gallagher Premiership is back. Welcome, welcome, welcome! Every one of the weekend’s pro rugby matches was a cracker; every team in all-out attack mode. It almost made me forget the vast cost of streaming it on Discovery+.

The takeaway thought from this cornucopia of delights was: If there is a more majestic sight in sport than Louis Rees-Zammit burning up the touchline to score an 80-yard try, I’d like to see it.

RICHARD DISMORE

1 October, 2025