Choose your champion: isn’t that what they say in video gaming circles? And, after all, what is politics if not the greatest game of all – a deadly serious one that determines the future of every citizen in the country.
Yesterday’s Budget spectacle underlined the stark choices on offer.
In the red corner, a flaccid, joyless, grim-faced, excuse-making, U-turning, cloth-eared Prime Minister presiding over a tax-hiking, growth-stifling, family-bashing Budget delivered by a strung-out zombie Chancellor.
In the blue corner, an Opposition leader fizzing with urgency: quick-thinking, fleet of foot, fired up with genuine passion, in total command of her brief and devastating in her evisceration of her opponent.
Tell me, which one would you choose? Who would you rather have on your side in a crisis? A man who bluffed and lied his way into power – or a woman who is determined to fight for every inch of hers?
I’ve said it before and I will say it again: Kemi Badenoch is not to be underestimated – and yesterday was a reminder of that fact. Her response to Reeves’ shambles was damning, fearless and so electrifying she could have lit up the Blackpool Illuminations.
Yes, she may have the toughest, most thankless job in politics – rehabilitating a decimated and discredited Tory Party. Yes, she may be up against the second-greatest political popinjay of the century, Nigel Farage (the first being his chum Donald Trump). Yes, she may be under constant attack from her own party. And yes, she may be behind in the polls.
But none of that mattered yesterday. She had a job to do, and did it brilliantly. One in the eye for her critics – momentarily, at least.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Tory Party, called Reeves’ Budget an ‘exercise in self-delusion’
Besides, if anyone can overcome the seemingly insurmountable obstacles that she and her party face, it’s Badenoch. She’s tough, tenacious and, as we saw yesterday, occasionally terrifying.
She’s not like that all the time: off-duty, she’s quite easygoing. But when it comes to her job, she has clear objectives, underpinned by equally solid values, and will accept no compromise. If she can’t have it the way she wants it, she would rather not have it at all.
In practice, this means that she won’t make announcements until she is ready, and she won’t opine unless she knows exactly what she’s talking about.
This puts her at a disadvantage in a digital age, when everyone pretends to be an expert on everything all the time even if they haven’t got a clue what they’re talking about. But such are the challenges of the modern age.
Replying to the Budget is also a huge challenge, one of the biggest tests of an Opposition leader. It’s the one time when even people who have little or no interest in political debate are tuning in, and you have to be on point. Muck it up, and you’re finished.
But it’s an important test. It’s next-level politics. It can take you from pretender to serious contender. And that’s what Badenoch did yesterday. She turned up the heat so high, the Opposition benches were boiling over. Madam Deputy Speaker did her best to cool things down, encouraging mindfulness and entreating them, like some parliamentary guru, to ‘breathe’ – but to no avail.
Eventually Labour MPs just took to sitting there, sulking like scolded teenagers on their phones, presumably scrolling through the jobs section of The Guardian for alternative career opportunities.
Starmer and Reeves endured in glum silence, visibly shrinking with every jibe. You almost felt sorry for them as Badenoch listed their many shortcomings. It was as much of a dressing-down as it was a Budget response.
‘Starmer and Reeves endured in glum silence, visibly shrinking with every jibe,’ writes Sarah Vine
Badenoch mocked Reeves for going on breakfast TV and frightening the nation over their Cheerios. The Chancellor, she said, was ‘spineless, shameless and aimless’.
Perhaps most devastatingly of all, she rounded on Reeves for claiming she was the victim of sexism. ‘Let me explain to the Chancellor, woman to woman,’ she thundered. ‘People out there aren’t complaining because she’s female. They’re complaining because she is utterly incompetent. Real equality means being held to the same standard as everyone else.’
Her line on the removal of the two-child benefit cap – if the Chancellor really wants to lift children out of poverty she should stop taxing their parents – was clever and devastating. She had fun leading her MPs in a chorus of ‘up’, ‘down’ while pointing out government failures on the likes of unemployment and growth.
Badenoch spoke plainly and with real passion, which is important: people want that of their politicians, especially when contrasted with a government that seems to do everything by stealth. She may have been addressing the Commons – but she was speaking to the nation.
What struck me was how much she was relishing her performance. With her poll ratings and constant crowing from Faragists, you might have expected her to be downbeat. But she has stomach for the fight. That is hugely cheering for those of us who still want the Conservatives to succeed.
No doubt her many critics will dismiss this as a one-off flash-in-the-pan. No doubt all those Tory MPs who have defected to Reform will claim that none of it matters, it’s all just ‘Westminster bubble’ stuff, and that the old party is ‘a busted flush’.
But truly, I would like to see Farage up on his feet in a similar situation displaying such a wide-ranging grasp of the facts and delivering such a devastating take-down with panache and precision. Trust me, it’s not as easy as Badenoch made it look.
At the end of the day, her problem is not that she doesn’t have the right ideas, or that she isn’t brave or bold (her fearless defence of women-only spaces is proof of that), or doesn’t have what it takes.
It’s that she’s so busy worrying about doing a good job she forgets that, from time to time, people need to see what she’s actually made of and how she is doggedly, tirelessly reshaping the party from the ground up according to her own uncompromising principles.
We saw a glimpse of that yesterday. Voters need to see much more of it. Before it’s too late.
