7 hours agoShareSaveMatt Chorley5 Live presenterShareSavePA MediaLouis Armstrong had all of it in the world. The Beautiful South needed a little more. For Kemi Badenoch, and her 118 MPs, time is also on their minds.The Conservative leader believes she needs more time, to turn around her party from its historic drubbing in last year’s general election.Yet as time’s gone on, she’s gone further down in the polls.”I didn’t say it would be easy,” she told Tory members on Sunday. “And I didn’t say it would be quick.”For her MPs – and I’ve contacted almost all of them for my BBC Radio 5 Live show via text and WhatsApp over the last few days – time is of the essence, and for some, it is already running out.Around one in three Tory MPs responded to my questions about the mood of the party, and the pressure Badenoch is under. They break down roughly into two camps.In the first are those who think the next election is a considerable way off and want Badenoch to be given space to try to repair damage not all of her own making. The mood, they insist, is better than much of the media speculation. “Chipper”, even. They take comfort from Labour’s own woes and leadership speculation, and cling to a belief that Reform UK’s populist policies increasingly do not survive contact with reality.”There’s a gallows humour about the party, a ‘well it can’t get any worse, can it?’ strange jovialness which is kind of bonding,” says one Tory MP.Several texts I received suggested Badenoch had bought herself more time in office, perhaps months, with a single performance at Prime Minister’s Questions last month, when she challenged Keir Starmer over what he knew about the friendship between his US ambassador, Peter Mandelson, and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.One former cabinet minister said: “The Mandelson PMQs was a turning point. She smashed it. “That one half hour has probably bought her another six months of grace in the job. She doesn’t need to learn the same lesson twice. Giving her time and space is starting to pay dividends.”And then there is the second camp who think the clock is ticking: on her leadership and on the long-term viability of what used to be called the world’s oldest and most successful political party. They grumble, especially those elected for the first time last year, about a leader’s office lacking in direction, fight, even a willingness to acknowledge their existence.”It’s not that we’re not getting listened to as a party,” says one 2024 Tory MP. “It’s that we’ve nothing to say. We’re too timid, we think we’re in government still and are fretting about costing things that we’ll never have to worry about if we keep on launching commissions and our best pushback against Reform is ‘That’s not costed, you know’.”In recent weeks, stung by criticism that she was aloof from her MPs, Badenoch has begun inviting in small groups for lunch. Well, platters of shop-bought sandwiches. When I pointed out to one invitee that Badenoch famously declared last year that she hated sandwiches (in line with just 1% of the British public), they replied “oh no, the MPs had sandwiches, Kemi had something hot brought in”.Some tell me privately that the looming date of 2 November, when Badenoch will have been in office for a year and therefore open to a confidence vote, is “focusing minds” in the leader’s office. “She needs to have a very impactful conference in order to stave off a confidence vote before the end of the year in my view,” says one MP. “There’s a whiff of fatality in the air because of the polls.”So how much time does she have? Next year’s elections to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senedd and many English councils are shaping up to be “the moment of truth”, according to some of her MPs. (Labour MPs were saying similar things to me about Keir Starmer last week.)One member of Badenoch’s own frontbench, who closely monitors the mood of the party, texts me bluntly: “She is under unbelievable pressure. This will be her last conference as leader.”When I expressed some surprise at the prediction, the MP quickly responded: “I like Kemi and I think we should stick with the leader we have so I hope I’m completely wrong.”Others are more convinced that her time is running out. One Conservative who publicly backed Badenoch in last year’s leadership contest told me: “Kemi’s time as leader could end by Christmas rather than after the May elections.”Ultimately unpredictable, and how conference goes will shape the outcome, but conference, and post conference polls, are undoubtedly pivotal.”Whatever the merits of having someone different in charge – and many see Robert Jenrick waiting in the wings – it risks exposing the Tories once again to the most damaging of political forces: ridicule.One grandee tells me: “We need to regain …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nn7 hours agoShareSaveMatt Chorley5 Live presenterShareSavePA MediaLouis Armstrong had all of it in the world. The Beautiful South needed a little more. For Kemi Badenoch, and her 118 MPs, time is also on their minds.The Conservative leader believes she needs more time, to turn around her party from its historic drubbing in last year’s general election.Yet as time’s gone on, she’s gone further down in the polls.”I didn’t say it would be easy,” she told Tory members on Sunday. “And I didn’t say it would be quick.”For her MPs – and I’ve contacted almost all of them for my BBC Radio 5 Live show via text and WhatsApp over the last few days – time is of the essence, and for some, it is already running out.Around one in three Tory MPs responded to my questions about the mood of the party, and the pressure Badenoch is under. They break down roughly into two camps.In the first are those who think the next election is a considerable way off and want Badenoch to be given space to try to repair damage not all of her own making. The mood, they insist, is better than much of the media speculation. “Chipper”, even. They take comfort from Labour’s own woes and leadership speculation, and cling to a belief that Reform UK’s populist policies increasingly do not survive contact with reality.”There’s a gallows humour about the party, a ‘well it can’t get any worse, can it?’ strange jovialness which is kind of bonding,” says one Tory MP.Several texts I received suggested Badenoch had bought herself more time in office, perhaps months, with a single performance at Prime Minister’s Questions last month, when she challenged Keir Starmer over what he knew about the friendship between his US ambassador, Peter Mandelson, and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.One former cabinet minister said: “The Mandelson PMQs was a turning point. She smashed it. “That one half hour has probably bought her another six months of grace in the job. She doesn’t need to learn the same lesson twice. Giving her time and space is starting to pay dividends.”And then there is the second camp who think the clock is ticking: on her leadership and on the long-term viability of what used to be called the world’s oldest and most successful political party. They grumble, especially those elected for the first time last year, about a leader’s office lacking in direction, fight, even a willingness to acknowledge their existence.”It’s not that we’re not getting listened to as a party,” says one 2024 Tory MP. “It’s that we’ve nothing to say. We’re too timid, we think we’re in government still and are fretting about costing things that we’ll never have to worry about if we keep on launching commissions and our best pushback against Reform is ‘That’s not costed, you know’.”In recent weeks, stung by criticism that she was aloof from her MPs, Badenoch has begun inviting in small groups for lunch. Well, platters of shop-bought sandwiches. When I pointed out to one invitee that Badenoch famously declared last year that she hated sandwiches (in line with just 1% of the British public), they replied “oh no, the MPs had sandwiches, Kemi had something hot brought in”.Some tell me privately that the looming date of 2 November, when Badenoch will have been in office for a year and therefore open to a confidence vote, is “focusing minds” in the leader’s office. “She needs to have a very impactful conference in order to stave off a confidence vote before the end of the year in my view,” says one MP. “There’s a whiff of fatality in the air because of the polls.”So how much time does she have? Next year’s elections to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senedd and many English councils are shaping up to be “the moment of truth”, according to some of her MPs. (Labour MPs were saying similar things to me about Keir Starmer last week.)One member of Badenoch’s own frontbench, who closely monitors the mood of the party, texts me bluntly: “She is under unbelievable pressure. This will be her last conference as leader.”When I expressed some surprise at the prediction, the MP quickly responded: “I like Kemi and I think we should stick with the leader we have so I hope I’m completely wrong.”Others are more convinced that her time is running out. One Conservative who publicly backed Badenoch in last year’s leadership contest told me: “Kemi’s time as leader could end by Christmas rather than after the May elections.”Ultimately unpredictable, and how conference goes will shape the outcome, but conference, and post conference polls, are undoubtedly pivotal.”Whatever the merits of having someone different in charge – and many see Robert Jenrick waiting in the wings – it risks exposing the Tories once again to the most damaging of political forces: ridicule.One grandee tells me: “We need to regain …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
