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The Guardian
3 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Call it the Kemi Badenoch conundrum: it's why the Tories are going nowhere fast
Kemi Badenoch's reshuffle of the shadow cabinet this week fell between two stools. It was not a de minimis reorganisation to account for the departure of Edward Argar from the health portfolio as a result of illness, but nor was it the sort of 'big bang' restructure that might have lent her leadership a sense of renewed momentum. I have heard few serious complaints about the appointments she did make, though a few – such as the removal of Jack Rankin, a close ally of Robert Jenrick, from his justice brief and his replacement with the Badenoch supporter Ben Obese-Jecty – have prompted some eye-rolls. You can detect similar tactics at work in the return to the frontbench of James Cleverly, who will now square off against Angela Rayner as shadow housing secretary. It's by no means an unwise appointment; Kevin Hollinrake, his predecessor, was not impressing in the role, and Cleverly is a strong media and Commons performer. But it can also be read as a bit of a balancing act. It is obviously destabilising for Badenoch's leadership to have Jenrick, the man almost universally regarded as her likely successor, as the highest-profile and best-performing member of the shadow cabinet. Elevating Cleverly, a potential rival, to a position where he can build a profile makes sense, in a divide-and-rule sort of way. The more serious sins, however, are sins of omission. By making changes to several major portfolios, such as appointing Richard Holden to transport, Badenoch has made all the changes she didn't make look like actual decisions. As such, her decision to retain the services of Priti Patel – whose only big moment since the general election has been a rash of well-deserved bad publicity when she asked to be thanked for the post-Brexit immigration 'Boriswave' – inevitably looks like an actual endorsement. Not helpful, if you're a leader trying to establish your own credibility on immigration. Ditto her not making space for rising stars of the 2024 intake, such as Katie Lam. In government, such a delay might make sense – but one of the urgent tasks facing the Tories is to present a fresh face to the electorate after 14 years in power, and Badenoch has missed an opportunity to do so. Politically, we might say that in the eyes of the party Badenoch had one mulligan on the shadow cabinet. Most people accept that it takes time for a new leader to find their feet, and that a leader's assessment of a colleague might be sharpened by actually working with them in opposition. Now she's had that mulligan, but at the same time hasn't really used it. More important, perhaps, is the departure of Lee Rowley as her chief of staff. Backroom appointments get less attention than ministerial changes, but they can be more significant. Rowley was one of Badenoch's few really close allies in politics, and such people play a critical role in any leadership. Theresa May might have survived the departure of Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill after the 2017 election, but it marked the point when she lost control of her own destiny. So what is going on? The semi-reshuffle illustrates a number of deep, structural problems facing Badenoch. Some of these are not her fault, others are. First, there is the simple fact that there are barely enough Conservative MPs to adequately staff the opposition frontbench. As such, any leader would need to give jobs to far more people than they didn't, which limits their ability to craft a shadow cabinet in their image – a problem compounded by the fact that the parliamentary Conservative party is deeply divided on the critical questions of what mistakes the party made in office and what it should do next. Any leader would face those problems. Badenoch has, however, made them more difficult for herself, most obviously by the way she won last year's leadership contest. Badenoch stood as a unifier, and has tried to make a virtue of party unity since becoming leader. But that unity was bought at a heavy price: not taking any policy positions. She summed up her pitch at her launch event as: 'I don't pretend I have all the answers, but I'm an engineer – and I know how to find them.' Tactically, this worked. But it did so by letting lots of people project their own hopes and preferences on to her. As a result, she can't build the shadow cabinet around a policy agenda because she doesn't have one yet; worse, agreeing one will be more difficult because nobody who backed her leadership committed themselves to any controversial policy changes by so doing. Further compounding all this is Badenoch's rapidly deteriorating position as leader. One plausible reason for not tapping up the 2024 intake is that bringing new people into the shadow cabinet team means kicking people out – and she cannot afford to create new enemies in the parliamentary party if she can possibly help it. In many ways, Badenoch's position is actually very similar to Rishi Sunak's during the dying days of the last government: trapped in an ever-weakening position and lacking the strength, the allies or the vision to make the sort of bold manoeuvre that alone might offer a way out. Henry Hill is deputy editor of ConservativeHome
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
With Cleverly centre stage, the Tories have a new look – but that isn't the same as a plan
It hardly compares for importance with all the cruelties in Gaza or Sudan. But then little else does that at present. It caused barely a ripple on the parochial surface of British politics either. That's hardly surprising at a time when Downing Street is warning about summer riots. Tellingly, the Daily Telegraph itself could only muster a single front-page paragraph on it on Wednesday, underneath Ozzy Osbourne's death and the England women's football extra-time squeaker. Yet Kemi Badenoch's shadow cabinet reshuffle this week should not be totally dismissed. See it instead as an inadequate recognition of an indisputable problem for any contemporary centre-right party, as well as an incoherent attempt to address it. If the Conservative party is very lucky, the reshuffle could be the start of better times. But it is nowhere near that point today. Right now, the reshuffle counts as the merest glimmer amid the Tory gloom. But a glimmer all the same. The reshuffle's headline event, in as much as there was one, is the return of James Cleverly to the Conservative frontbench. The official opposition party is, of course, a shadow of what it once was, with only 120 MPs at the last count, and Cleverly is not quite the political heavyweight he pretends. Yet he came within a whisker of leading the party last October. He also has far more spirit and public recognition than most of his colleagues. He stands for a form of continuity conservatism with what remains of the party's one nation instincts and pragmatic traditions that brought it such success for so long. He was also, until this week, his party's most underutilised backbench asset, and potentially the biggest backbench threat to Badenoch's rocky leadership. Unlike ex-ministers such as Rishi Sunak or Jeremy Hunt, Cleverly also still has a future. It made sense to have him back in the tent. From Badenoch's perspective, because Cleverly, a seasoned operator, has repeatedly made effective backbench attacks on Labour which should be better made from the frontbench. From Cleverly's, because he would once again be the most plausible candidate to stop the shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, in the event of yet another Tory leadership contest. If Cleverly is to consolidate that position – which he must do to take momentum away from Jenrick's efforts to steal Nigel Farage's clothes – he will need to make an impact in his new role. It helps that housing, where he will now shadow Labour's Angela Rayner, is an issue on which Cleverly touched – perhaps with private foreknowledge about the reshuffle – in his IPPR speech this month. He has strong instincts on housing. He is against nimbyism. He says the party should not be afraid of making the case for new housing to people who already have houses. This points to why Cleverly's return is important more generally. Unlike Jenrick, he stands against cosying up to Reform UK. In June, speaking to the Conservative Environment Network shortly after Badenoch had ditched the party's 2050 net zero target – a move widely seen as a bending of the knee to Farage – he insisted that economic growth and 'environmental obligations' must go hand-in-hand. At the IPPR this month, his central argument was that the Tory party must stop aping Reform UK by pretending there are easy answers to difficult problems. The party had to be honest about the need for, and the challenges of, delivery. The key lines in his lecture came at the end: 'We don't need a revolution,' said Cleverly. 'We need a restoration – of competence, of delivery, and of trust.' Cleverly's return therefore raises an important broader question for the Tory party. Is Badenoch's decision to bring him into the shadow cabinet an attempt to pivot the Conservative party away from the populist right and towards the kind of more traditional centre-right stance that Cleverly embodies? In electoral terms, is it an attempt to move away from a concentration on working-class voters in the so-called red wall of Labour seats where Reform UK has established itself as the main contender? Or does it instead imply a renewed focus on more middle-class voters in the so-called former 'blue wall' where Ed Davey's Liberal Democrats have swept so many Tories aside? This is a big choice for the Conservatives – there is none bigger, in fact – and it is therefore important not to oversimplify it. It is not a choice about returning to the past. It is one that involves making judgments about almost everything that the party thinks it stands for in a fast-changing world – including social order, economic prosperity, individual freedom, cultural traditions, competence, global standing and more. It is also a UK variation of a question that simultaneously faces all former centre-right parties in the established democracies, all of which confront similar sets of issues. Only this week, Japanese voters handed out a rare electoral rocking to the centre-right government of the prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba. Plenty of Conservatives have been grappling seriously with these questions. In a joint project earlier this year, the Bright Blue thinktank and Germany's Konrad Adenauer Stiftung came up with a list of 10 priorities for the European centre right. These included an emphasis on shared national identity, simplified regulatory regimes, avoidance of zero-sum thinking, re-established competence, individual responsibility, shared values and customs, civility towards others, the state's role as carer, support for families, and environmental conservation. None of these is doctrinaire or narrow. Up to now, Badenoch has preferred to avoid such choices. She still seems to believe that moderation is not cool and therefore not effective. She prefers to fight on cultural issues rather than hard policy choices. She presents herself as the embodiment of contrarian cleverness, not as a strategist or problem solver who can run things well – the precise opposite of Cleverly's own self-presentation. She focuses her disdain on white-collar workers in state institutions – a large group of voters the Conservatives have been steadily losing and which her approach does nothing to reverse. She goes out of her way to praise Donald Trump and JD Vance, both of whom are unpopular with UK voters. In reality, one of the smartest things she could do would be to become a Trump critic. If bringing Cleverly back is indeed meant as a pivot to the traditional centre right, then it is an extremely cunningly camouflaged one. Such a shift is not inherently impossible, and the Bright Blue-KAS report shows many ways in which it could be attempted. But it is exceptionally hard to believe in when the party is so battered by defeat and so frightened of Farage. With the Conservatives now averaging just 17% in the polls, there is a lot of ground to regain, but no sign under its current leader of any serious strategy for doing so. Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
Daily Mail
23-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Kemi Badenoch tries to quell signs of rift with James Cleverly on leaving ECHR after his shadow cabinet return
Kemi Badenoch today tried to quell signs of a rift with James Cleverly over the prospect of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The Tory leader dramatically brought the former Home Secretary back into the fold yesterday as part of a shadow cabinet reshuffle. Sir James will be taking on Angela Rayner in the housing brief as the Conservatives struggle to revive their fortunes. However, touring broadcast studios this morning he did not give a full-hearted endorsement of Mrs Badenoch's remark that she is 'increasingly of the view that we will need to leave' the ECHR. Asked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme if he agreed with the comment, Sir James said: 'Well, she has commissioned a review by the shadow attorney general and it is right that we look at this. 'It was incredibly frustrating when I was trying to deport people and we had judges making what I regarded as completely perverse decisions, leaning on the European court and so it is absolutely right that we look at that. 'I am going to wait for the outcome of that review.' Asked again if he agreed with Mrs Badenoch, Sir James said: 'I completely understand her position on that. She has commissioned a review.' Challenged that he did not appear to be in step with the leader, he replied: 'No, that is what you are saying. What I am saying is she has commissioned a review and I am going to wait to see what that review (concludes). Sir James added: 'I have said what I believe. What I have said is that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights will not necessarily be a silver bullet and we need to look at the wider implications, we need to look at how we are going to do that. 'Kemi has commissioned a review to do just that. I think that is the right thing to do. 'If the review sets out how we can make that work then of course, and that becomes party policy, I will completely understand that and I will abide by that. Pressed by broadcasters later whether Sir James was signed up to her position on the ECHR, Mrs Badenoch said: 'James and I have always had the same position on the ECHR, and that is that if we need to leave, then we should leave, but it's not a silver bullet. 'That is why we have a commission on this very issue, which will be reporting at party conference. 'So I wouldn't bring someone into the shadow cabinet if they didn't agree with me.'
Bloomberg
23-07-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Badenoch Shuffles UK Tory Team in Bid to Salvage Leadership
UK opposition leader Kemi Badenoch shuffled her Conservative shadow cabinet in an attempt to reset her leadership of the party which is coming under pressure a year on from its landslide election defeat. Badenoch appointed Tory moderate James Cleverly to her front-bench line-up as shadow housing secretary, a person familiar with the matter said. Stuart Andrew will become shadow health secretary, replacing Ed Argar, and Nigel Huddleston will be shadow culture secretary. Kevin Hollinrake will come in as party chairman, they said.
Times
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Times
Kemi Badenoch takes on pastoral role in cabinet reshuffle
Kemi Badenoch appointed Sir James Cleverly as shadow housing secretary and Kevin Hollinrake as party chairman in the reshuffle DAN KITWOOD/GETTY IMAGES L ife comes at you fast sometimes. Just seven months ago Kemi Badenoch ruled out a reshuffle of her shadow cabinet until the next election. But here we are. Out with the old, in with the, well, old. Caring leader that she is, Badenoch, made sure her spads received the appropriate pastoral care to handle the sudden shock of Sir James Cleverly and Kevin Hollinrake's new roles. In the Tory spads' WhatsApp group, she wrote on Tuesday morning: 'I am very conscious of the knock-on effect to people in this group so rest assured I will reach out, should anyone here be affected. Thanks for your patience and support.' One of the recipients replied: 'What, both of them?' The animal-loving House of Commons Speaker threw a summer drinks party for some semi-housetrained beasts, the Westminster press. Among Sir Lindsay Hoyle's menagerie of pets are a dog, a parrot, Boris, two tortoises, and cats called Clem and Attlee. Channel 4's Anushka Asthana suggested he should get another puppy and call him Keir. 'It can beg for trade deals,' she explained, 'jump whenever Donald Trump asks, and roll over at the first sign of a backbench revolt.' Wednesday sees England and India's cricketers resume hostilities, quite literally if the bad-tempered Test match at Lord's is anything to go by. The visiting players followed that appointment with another at Clarence House, where the King hosted a reception for them. Mentioning this on Test Match Special, Jonathan Agnew recalled compering a match at Windsor. When Prince William came on to bowl, Aggers called out 'bowler's name?' Later, when Prince Harry was bowling, his brother dropped an 'absolute sitter of a catch' at mid-on. 'It didn't go down very well,' recalled Aggers. Maybe this is where things started to go wrong. The late Graham Taylor would have understood Tuesday's story about Sir Andy Murray needing to beat his five-year-old son at chess. The former England football manager was competitive with his own grandchildren, once admitting that he could let his granddaughter win four races in the back garden but never the fifth. Much to Taylor's chagrin, his grandson became a Manchester United supporter: 'When we were playing, the sight of that number seven and the name Beckham would encourage me to tackle him illegally. I do remember one particularly malicious tackle that warranted a straight red card. There were a few tears and I did get in trouble with my daughter, though I argued it's all part of growing up.' Eric Idle has provided a glimpse into Sir Paul McCartney's TV preferences. The ex-Python has revealed that the ex-Beatle was happy to grant permission when Idle wanted to perform Love Me Do on the TV show The Masked Singer — but there was a catch. A friend had told Idle to contact Macca directly for permission. 'I wrote to him, and said: 'Can I sing your song on The Masked Singer?' ', Idle told Radio 2. McCartney replied: 'Yes, absolutely, providing you tell me what night it's on and what time it's on, so I can be sure to miss it.'
