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September 22, 2024 - 1:00pm
Tory MPs are in a state of shock. It’s not that the scale of their general election defeat has finally sunk in — rather, it’s the sheer ineptitude of their Labour opponents.
At the end of the worst week so far for the new government, we’ve seen the Prime Minister (“Free Gear Keir”) concede that he’ll no longer be accepting gifts of clothing. And, perhaps more seriously, the words “this can’t go on” are becoming attached to his embattled chief-of-staff, Sue Gray. Once the most feared civil servant in Whitehall, she’s become a figure of fun due to a completely avoidable row over her pay.
Like all the other missteps of Starmer’s first 100 days, Labour seems powerless to prevent small embarrassments from turning into major headaches. We haven’t had many polls since the general election, but what we do have appears to show significant damage. According to More in Common, Labour support is down six points to 29% — which is just four points ahead of the Tories. In the months after Labour’s landslide victory in 1997 Tony Blair went from strength-to-strength, but 2024 is a very different story. As Dominic Cummings puts it: “This government already has the air of a bunch of exhausted clueless hacks that usually takes years to acquire.”
Might this process of acceleration also apply to any Conservative comeback? It took 13 years for the Tories to return to office last time, but could that be reduced to the span of a single parliament this time round? They shouldn’t get ahead of themselves, given that the More in Common poll shows that they haven’t advanced at all. Instead, Labour has been bleeding support to the smaller parties. And here we come to the obstacles lying across the Conservative road to recovery.
The first is Reform UK. The Tory leadership contenders have lots to say about winning back the trust of their former voters — but almost nothing about how to deal with Nigel Farage. It’s as if the candidates have agreed to shut down any such debate. We haven’t heard the relevant questions, let alone the answers.
Then there are the Lib Dems, who took 59 seats from the Tories — 54 more than Reform did. There’s no reason to suppose Labour unpopularity will be bad for the yellows. Which is a problem, because there’ll be no Conservative recovery, let alone a majority, unless the Blue Wall is rebuilt in southern England.
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The Labour leader may be unfortunate in having a name which readily lends itself to simple but effective epithets, but there the misfortune ends; the rest is all his own doing.
But the question posed in the article is whether the Tories can capitalise on his very early descent into mockery. The answer very much depends, of course, on who wins the leadership contest. If it’s Jenrick, their chances are slim since his parliamentary profile up to this point has been one of… erm, he didn’t have one, being too bland and ineffectual-looking (in a typically Tory chinless way) to make any impact.
Anyone other than Badenoch would be a serious mistake – the same kind of mistakes following their defeat in 1997 which led to a succession of third-raters being elected as leader.
Amen to that.
I really don’t know Jenrick (I had to check how to spell his name), but who knows… could he be a new Thatcher? For now Badenoch is the only one who seems to have some energy.
I would have agreed with you about Badenoch before the election but I’ve cooled on her since the insipid leadership contest started. Badenoch is too ready to trot out class, race and gender, specifically *her* class, race and gender, to win an argument when it gets spicy, and it’s not a good sign. She shouldn’t care about any of that, nor use it in debate, she and her qualifications stand (or fall) on their own merits.
I should also mention my interest in the Tory leadership contest this time comes from sheer force of habit, I have no intention to ever vote for the Tories again, the betrayals were too great I’m afraid.
Too harsh on Badenoch. She very rarely mentions identity stuff. It’s just given much higher profile than the many well thought out and honest things she says.
Disagree. She has been very ‘anti’ identity politics whenever I have heard her speak. This should make her popular amongst the traditional Labour Voter who is currently in the wilderness.
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I was thinking just this morning, didn’t we have an election and a change in government? I’d swear we did, but now I am not so sure; maybe it was but a dream.
The next election will be a great opportunity for all parties except Labour to gain seats. The last election was a pure anti Tory vote and Labour got in by default and hardly increased their vote from the previous election when they got trounced by a Boris led Tory party. Starmer is no Blair and I cannot see this government being very successful and going down well with the electorate. The winter fuel/freebies scandal as damaged their credibility and trust amongst the electorate irrevocably. I can only see a hung parliament at the next election.
Kemi Badenoch is more than capable of capitalising on 2TK’s short-comings (I actually think he will be defenestrated long before the next election, given that he is such a dud).
I think a pact between The Conservatives and Reform UK is quite a likely outcome at the next election (like the Aussie LNP Coalition). The Tories could focus on economic and defence issues to woo the “Blue Wall” while Farage gets the Home Office and a free hand on immigration control, prison building and creating a “one-tier” law and order policy.