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November 5, 2024 - 7:00am
The first proper Shadow Cabinet assembled by a Tory leader in a decade and a half looks to be driven more by continuity than renewal. Early announcements have shown Kemi Badenoch handing the major positions to her vanquished rivals. So far, three of the five candidates who stood against her have been handed jobs, while James Cleverley ruled himself out. Plugging the Shadow Cabinet with influential members of the last few governments is a good way of securing Badenoch’s position, but perhaps avoids confronting some of the bigger issues in the party.
Mel Stride, the surprise entrant into the leadership race, has been made Shadow Chancellor, pointing to a continuation of Sunak-era economic policy. Putting runner-up Robert Jenrick into the Justice role suggests an endorsement of his attacks on Keir Starmer, with more attention focused on “two-tier” allegations and the release of prisoners. More controversial, however, might be the return of Priti Patel, who oversaw the significant rise in immigration which many Tory voters — and insiders — blame for the catastrophic scale of defeat in July.
For a shadow leader, there is little that can go right and a lot that can go wrong. Now there will be few set pieces to make a mark against the Government until the spring, when another Budget and the local elections loom. With the drama of a leadership contest gone, the Tory Party will start to feel just how far from power it now is and may start to get tetchy. This could be compounded in the spring by a poor performance in local elections, which Reform UK appears to be targeting hard.
Badenoch’s political survival relies on calming these jitters. She needs her backbenchers pulling together, and her potential rivals placated. A defeated rival who already has a network in place can be dangerous if they feel slighted. Jenrick, who mounted an effective campaign to win, has everything in place to do so again, while someone on the Left of the party may see another opportunity if Badenoch falters.
It feels highly unlikely that this will be the shadow team that fights the next election or tries to form a government after it. Over the next few years, a new vanguard of Tory talent will start to emerge — figures such as Claire Coutinho who apprenticed under Sunak, or some of the 2024 intake with political pedigree such as former Spad Katie Lam. The junior figures in the shadow operation may soon come to be more important than those who occupy the top jobs now. The question will remain, though, whether that will be too late for the party to get itself into shape for the next election.
The political imperatives around simply surviving to the next election will have steered the Shadow Cabinet picks. That’s understandable — the Tory impulse for regicide can’t be overstated. For a party that needs a deep consideration of where it went wrong, however, picking from the old guard might just be embedding the same mistakes. These early appointments feel like a holding pattern, not a deep renewal. For a party which needs fresh ideas and energy to have a hope of winning back power, that may be a mistake.
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SubscribeI’ve heard a lot of commentary from left and right that KB is just not that good, not across the detail etc.; and now this article suggesting the current appointments are dodging the real issues in the party. Let’s just see, shall we? Her line that she isn’t prepared to announce policies until they have been really thought through strikes me as positive, and this shadow cabinet, if it is a holding pattern, seems a much better idea than detonating another bomb inside the Parliamentary party.
I don’t trust Jenrick though – he has a lean and hungry look.
Good analysis, she has to secure her back and develop policies with a team who will support them.
Expect many re-shuffles as we go forward before 2029
The Tories won’t convert many voters unless and until they favor withdrawal from the ECHR
Badenoch has to watch her back, just like Thatcher did when she was elected leader.
I expect her to introduce new people as she goes forward and develops polices that are hopefully strategic and ‘conservative’.
It will be interesting to see how her philosphy develops and who becomes her ‘Keith Joseph’.
Expect many re-shuffles as she finds the right team to fight the 2029 election.
No better signal that unfortunately Kemi ain’t going to prove the saviour hoped for than her appointment of Priti Hopeless, err I mean Patel, as Foreign Sec. Has Kemi forgotten she was forced to resign for having the stupidity and ego to conduct her own diplomatic manoeuvres when not the FS? Or that immigration increased under Hopeless? Or that the the UK public had enough of the Priti smirk and she’d have been better not to bring that back to the fore again?
As for Generic, apparently Justice brief was the 4th job offered. He’d rejected the first three as all poison chalices – Health, Housing etc. This one not much better given the state of the Prison system. The flicker of animosity between them v evident. He did her significant damage with the ‘Kemi – policy-lite’ attack line and a toxic shadow cabinet brief was always going to be his reward. She doesn’t forget slights. He won’t forget this ‘gift’.
However her instinct to punch back means this is going to be entertaining, for a while at least.
I think you should be a lot more careful what you wish for JW. The danger with unimpeded class rule is that eventually those who are excluded take matters into their own hands.
Will the Tories’ Weather Woman predict a ‘hurricane’ of votes the next time around?
The last time, the hurricane washed the Tories out of office but unfortunately didn’t cleanse the stables.