Five years ago this week, Boris Johnson cruised to an 80-seat majority in the general election. Life hadn’t been quite this good for the Tories since Margaret Thatcher’s days. They couldn’t believe their luck as they bathed in the unbearable smugness of being. They would be in government for another 10 years at a bare minimum. The Labour party? Who were they again? Remind me.
Fast forward to the present day and the Tories are a hollowed out rump with a mere 121 MPs. And the more intelligent Conservatives are thankful to have that many. Few think there is any easy way back for the party. The main lesson from the July election wasn’t how much people loved Labour: it was how much everyone hated the Tories. They had wrecked the country and everyone had had enough. Good riddance.
So you might have thought there would be some people at the top of the Tory party who were interested in understanding what went wrong. Who wanted to make sense of such profligacy. Tossing away an inheritance with almost no regard. Consumed with fighting one another rather than doing anything that might benefit the country. Men and women who were determined to make the Conservatives a credible political party once more.
Apparently not. Instead, the Tories have chosen to live in an echo chamber with Kemi Badenoch as its mouthpiece. A woman driven by her own passions, neuroses and psychoses who picks up most of her intelligence from the deeper recesses of the far-right conspiracy theories on the internet. A leader who is out of touch with what most of the country really think or feel. Her fatal flaw is to imagine that she knows best.
KemiKaze neither listens nor learns. She is merely a reactive semi-autonomous being who bounces around aimlessly in the dark web. A party leader who has come to believe that the problem with the Conservatives was that they weren’t Conservative enough. David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak: all just Commy stooges.
What’s required of her is more undiluted rightwingery. There is no recognition that millions of people who had previously voted Conservative had instead backed labour and the Lib Dems. If this was an intelligence test, then Kemi had failed spectacularly. D–.
Still. Never look a gift horse and all that. And the Tories’ revolving psychodrama is Labour’s gain. A prime minister’s questions that could have been awkward with a different leader of the opposition was instead a walk in the park. As it has been for weeks now. And how it will be for the foreseeable future. Because KemiKaze is incapable of change. She is hotwired to self-destruct. Keir Starmer’s luck is in. Grateful for small mercies.
Mind you, it could have been Nigel Farage or Lee Anderson who was asking the questions at this PMQs. Because Kemi was hellbent on annexing the Reform agenda. More concerned with stopping the last remnants of her support from drifting further to the right than trying to win back the ones she had lost to the centre. Not even the centre left.
All six of KemiKaze’s questions were devoted to immigration. I use the word “question” loosely. Figuratively even. They were long tirades of anger, personal abuse and bile with a notional question mark attached to the end. It was yet another PMQs that was instantly forgettable. Pointless. That served no useful purpose. If this was the sign of a properly functioning grown-up democracy, then parliament is in serious trouble.
Right from the start, KemiKaze was contorted with rage. She really must spend less time on the internet. Not everything she reads on X is necessarily true. I dread to think who she follows. Immigration was out of control, she shouted. Labour had done nothing to stop people pouring into the country from all over the globe. Her hatred for foreigners is more uncontained by the day. One day soon she will short-circuit and stop mid-sentence.
Starmer tried to respond with reason. Could he just gently point out that it was the Tories who had presided over an open borders policy in recent years? Would it help to point out that Badenoch had actually been a member of the government that was responsible? So if she wanted to get angry, she might be better shouting at herself in the mirror. Just a thought. After all, it wasn’t very productive for her to blame Labour for not having sorted out all the fuck-ups that her mob had confected in the past 14 years.
This only seemed to make Kemi angrier still. There’s something about a collision with reality that only spurs her on to greater insanity. It wouldn’t be so bad if it were fun to watch. But it’s not. Just a feeling that everyone is a little grubbier – a little more diminished – as a result.
Now KemiKaze just mainlined her own poison. Starmer had personally written letters allowing rapists and murderers to offend again. It was madness. As if Keir had personally begged murderers to kill again.
“You signed them,” yelled the ever ridiculous Chris Philp, who was sitting at his leader’s side. One day a therapist is going to have a field day with this Tory frontbench. For the moment, self-awareness escapes them all. The Philpster acted as if he had delivered a gotcha. Pulling up his trousers to reveal union jack socks in imagined triumph. It was almost pathetic.
Kemi was rushing on her run. Labour had scrapped the Rwanda plan. Er, yes, because it was idiotic. If Sunak had ever thought it was going to work he wouldn’t have called an election in July.
Worst of all, Keir had stood up for Shamima Begum. Here KemiKaze might look closer to home. The Tory Lord Verdirame, who is closely connected to Badenoch’s operation, had been UN special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights in the Shamima Begum case. Pots and kettles. His lordship is also a specialist in international arbitration. Something that Kemi might need as she gets involved in a slanging match with the Nigerian government. Just imagine if she did this as prime minister. You can’t, can you? Just as well.
The session ended with Starmer asking Kemi to apologise. Both for the lies and the failures of the Tory party. KemiKaze looked as if she would implode. She never apologises. Never explains. Just continues to mine her fatal flaws. No weakness must be shown. The irony is that it’s on view for all to see.
-
Taking the Lead by John Crace is published by Little, Brown (£18.99). To support the Guardian and waitObserver, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.