As another premiership falters, it is worth thinking of why we end up in this situation so often, and the wider costs it brings. If tenures are shrinking, it is a sign not of constitutional weakness but of repeated political misjudgement.
If voters are ready to give the Conservative leader a hearing it is because no one else is better able to articulate the country’s contempt for this disgrace of a government. This being our most powerful weapon, it makes perfect sense to deploy it at every opportunity.
L P Hartley once wrote “the past is a foreign country; they do things differently there”. Everyone in politics is trying to express the same, but it might be an idea for all to visit it occasionally and say ‘you know what? We got that wrong’.
Draw up a proper plan which directly explains what we (and Labour) got wrong and what we will do differently to fix it. This will mean making difficult and unpopular changes. We have to find some way mitigating the deep antipathy towards us.
If you don’t set out a clear and packed agenda before ascending to power, to deliver on the receipt of a mandate at a general election, then you will be left with all barnacles and no boat.
There’s a clear political advantage for any who adopt language that frames their vision in a positive way. It’s simple psychology. People want something to believe in more than they want something that will give them Schadenfreude.
The smart thing for the Conservatives to do is stick to painting the picture of the future, oppose the Government and let Reform do whatever they want. Badenoch doesn’t need to include Farage in her Conservative vision for the years ahead
Fiscal Conservatism means tough effective management of the public finances. That has historically meant some tax rises at the start, like in 1979 and 2010. Labour’s catastrophic mistake of ruling out increases in all three of the main taxes should not be repeated.
It’s not a series of resets but an unending catalogue of missteps, false starts, and kite flying that ends up crashing to the ground. It’s more newsworthy now when Starmer has a good week than a bad one. Send in the clowns? Don’t bother, they’re here.
Badenoch has the reins of power in the party. She represents what conservatives should have been all along. Proud, practical and unafraid to say what most people are thinking.
And the very difficult politics of doing so, illustrated by Johnson’s swipe at Cummings.
We can’t just re-run the austerity messaging of the Cameron-Osborne years. This time the savings plan needs to go hand-in-hand with a growth plan. And as well reducing the size of the state, we need to be reducing demand for the state.
Governments have been publishing ‘growth plans’ for decades, many of which gather dust on the shelves of the Treasury, and are quickly forgotten. The real challenge is not simply what to do – but how to get it done.
Post Conference Badenoch’s survey numbers show she’s more secure as leader. She showed fire, and grit has framed her defence against Reform, is attacking Labour with both barrels and has laid out to the the public what she’d do instead. It’s not a bad way to exit the Conference season.
Britain is drifting towards a model where the state grows while ambition shrinks. Success is treated with suspicion. Enterprise is penalised.