I swear that every year the introductions to leaders’ speeches at party conferences become more and more of a circus. Gone are the days of a weird music hall song by Jim Callaghan or a butchered Python joke by Mrs Thatcher, today we get a whole cavalcade of strangeness before the leader has even stepped on stage. So it was today as Mrs Badenoch addressed the Tory faithful.
We were treated to Chris Philp and Nick Timothy as a sort of Tory Home Affairs Bill and Ben. Then a shadow cabinet beauty parade; an oxymoron for the ages, up there with ‘the integrity of Lord Mandelson’. As they all trooped out one by one, there were huge cheers for newcomer Katie Lam and for unlikely conference darling Lord True.
While this protracted set of introductions was somewhat tiresome, it was quite helpful to be reminded who on earth some of these people were. Even the woman calling out their names seemed occasionally unsure. I’m pretty sure the shadow defence secretary isn’t actually called ‘Errrr James Cartlidge’, but it was thus that he was introduced.
Then came the national anthem. Just the standard opening verse; no mention for ‘knavish tricks’ (though they might have been appropriate given Andy Burnham’s plans for the Church of England) nor for Marshal Wade and crushing rebellious Scots. Given the party’s hopes to be number two to the SNP north of the border again, that was probably wise. This Scots focus was underlined by the presence of Douglas Lumsden, Tory by-election winner in Aberdeen. He introduced the main event.
Regardless of the popularity of the wider party and the occasionally morgue-esque atmosphere of the conference, there can be no denying that the Tory faithful love Mrs Badenoch. ‘Kemi, Kemi, Kemi!’ they yelled. She beamed at the audience, radiating self-assurance. Given that a year and a half ago she was written off, and the propensity the Tories have for brutally knifing leaders if they show a smidgen of weakness, even being on stage this year is an achievement.
Badenoch wasn’t the only person in receipt of unlikely plaudits. This was the only conference where we got a sustained video tribute to Sir Keir Starmer, the man most responsible for any Kemi bounce. His fussy priggishness and perma-anally probed expression were beamed across the conference hall as the faithful watched a PMQs ‘greatest hits’ compilation. There was every sign that Mrs Badenoch is preparing to give Mr Burnham the same verbal smacked bottom which she so regularly administered to Sir Keir. ‘Don’t let this man fool you with his fluttering eyelashes and pork scratchings,’ she purred.
Rather marvellously, Mrs Badenoch quoted W. S. Gilbert and The Mikado, insisting that she would ‘let the punishment fit the crime’. Unwillingly representing a source of innocent merriment might yet be her party’s fate but it’s very good to see the Savoy Operas get another Tory conference airing after Peter Lilley’s ‘Little List’. She compared the Tory party’s travails to Marks and Spencer – an iconic national brand that had recovered from a slump. Between G&S and M&S, the shoutouts were unashamedly to provincial Britain, red meat to the Tory shires. Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake had even brought his ‘far-right’ black Labrador onstage, in reference to Labour minister Jenny Riddell-Carpenter’s deranged prejudices.
The speech itself was a mixed bag. Perhaps worryingly, she told us that the Tories ‘would not let this country go backwards’. Forgive me but I rather thought that the party of Lord Salisbury would see some value in things going backwards. I think most of its voters – and indeed probably most of the rest of the country – would be quite happy to turn the clock back to, oh I don’t know, to pick a time out of the blue, any time prior to 1 May 1997? As one of the most underrated Tory leaders, the Duke of Wellington, purportedly exclaimed: ‘Reform!? Aren’t things bad enough already?’ The Tories could do worse than make that their slogan going into the next election.
Attacking another party for having a psychosexual relationship with its leaders is a bold move from the leadership of the Conservative and Unionist Party
Tellingly, Mrs Badenoch managed to make a distinction which many in Labour seem to fall foul of; namely criticising the people who lead a party but not those who vote for it, or the instincts that have made them do so. Of Reform voters, she said ‘many of them are our people. We let them down, and we want them to come back home’. Easier said than done. The biggest cheers of the session came when she ruled out any sort of pact with Reform. She mentioned their former Welsh leader who got done for accepting Russian bribes: ‘some of them are measuring up the curtains for their prison cells’. Oof. Clearly there’s work to be done on inter-party relations.
She also took aim at Reform’s so-called ‘weirdos’ including Farage’s right-hand man George Cottrell, ‘who calls himself Posh George, and calls Nigel Farage “Daddy”’. Attacking another party for having a psychosexual relationship with its leaders is a bold move from the leadership of the Conservative and Unionist Party. Tory party conference must boast the highest proportion of people who call Mrs Thatcher ‘Mummy’ outside of the I’m A Celebrity jungle or a South African courtroom. In some quarters Mrs Badenoch is herself the object of similar fantasies. There are many attack lines which the Tories could use on Reform and so choosing one with such a high stones/glass house ratio seemed a curious decision. These are people who, had they been alive in 1780, would have found a way to sexualise Lord North.
Badenoch concluded with a promise to abolish inheritance tax on family homes – unveiled to roars of delight from the audience. This was probably the most comfortable speech by a Tory leader at their conference since the days of Cameron, and party strategists will be pleased. But it also summed up the Conservative dilemma; a leader who remains considerably more popular than her party, and considerably less toxic than her brand.
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