Labour is struggling in the polls. Its spring economic statement next week is likely to be grim. Meanwhile, the Conservatives have an ambitious new leader and the local elections are only six weeks away. The situation ought to be full of promise for Kemi Badenoch and her party. Instead, she is treating the May elections not as a promise but as a threat.
Mrs Badenoch launched the Conservatives’ campaign in warm spring weather on Thursday. From her message, however, it sounded as if she is leading her party into an electoral blizzard. If you apply the 2024 general election result to the councils that are up for election on 1 May, she told supporters: “We lose almost every single one.” The contest, she repeated, would be “very difficult”.
The new Tory leader likes to think of herself as a facer of facts from which others flinch. And, presumably, Mrs Badenoch casts herself as a prophet of doom in part because she thinks the results will actually be a bit better than this. Even so, this is a spectacularly downbeat piece of expectation management from an outfit that still thinks of itself as Britain’s natural party of government.
It is true that the Tories did very well in 2021, when Boris Johnson was still popular and the Covid vaccine rollout had cheered the nation, so they are vulnerable this time. It is also true that the Liberal Democrats, buoyed by successes in Tory seats last July, hope to repeat the trick in counties like Buckinghamshire, Cornwall and Wiltshire in May. And it is especially true that Reform UK is high in the polls and expected to draw votes not just from the Conservatives but also from Labour.
Nevertheless, the gloom of the launch spoke volumes about a party that is still, in spite of its catastrophic defeat last year, the principal party of opposition and the most probable alternative government. Ordinarily, these can be important advantages to wield amid the long and often cheerless march of opposition. But the deeper reality is that the Conservatives are still flailing over policy and too divided, unable to respond humbly to the defeat of 2024, in much the same manner as when they proved incapable of pre-empting it after Mr Johnson was forced out.
Some of this is impossible to avoid. Even if Mrs Badenoch were a better leader and her party more unified, the Tories would still be profoundly constrained by having had 14 years to sort out problems for which they now try to blame Labour. The approach this week over welfare reform is a perfect example. Recent rows about asylum seekers and grooming gangs illustrate the same point. Next week, it will happen again over the economy.
We hold no brief for the Conservatives. But here are some things that might help the party feel a bit more relevant again. It could be more honest about its failings, including over Brexit. It could concentrate on policies to rebuild Tory credibility among young people. It could focus on parts of its record in government where it can claim achievements – on the net zero targets that Mrs Badenoch has just trashed, perhaps, or school standards. And it could learn from the German conservative leader, Friedrich Merz. Being in opposition is not easy, especially after an experience like 2024 and what led up to it. At the moment, though, Mrs Badenoch is making the worst of a bad job.
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