‘Kemi hates doing media’: Tory anxiety after 100 days of Badenoch leadership
On Monday, it will be 100 days since Kemi Badenoch became the leader of a demoralised rump of 121 Conservative MPs.So, at this traditional moment for gauging initial success, how well is she doing? It depends, perhaps inevitably, on how you measure it.“What you have to remember is that for the first 18 or so months after you lose an election, especially as badly as we did, no one cares what you do,” one Tory MP said.“From that point of view, Kemi’s caution in not rushing into policies makes sense.No one is listening yet.
She has time,”This is a key point,For all that the Tories are trailing behind Reform UK and Labour in the polls, with Badenoch showing few signs of turning things around, there is not yet open panic, even in a party with a tradition of removing underperforming leaders,But there are definitely worries,Some centre on strategy – for example, whether Badenoch is capable of devising a suite of policies to see off Nigel Farage.
Others focus on the party machine, the leader’s inner circle, and for some MPs, Badenoch herself.A common complaint is that Badenoch appears to view media duties as a chore and a challenge, often sending out shadow cabinet colleagues in her place.“Kemi absolutely hates doing media.She does not see it as an integral part of her job,” one former adviser said.“We could get away with that in government but in opposition you have to turn up to the opening of an envelope.
She should be trying to get clips on the news every night,But she is not prepared to do it,”“In opposition, it’s a one-man or one-woman show,” an MP said,“With the best will in the world, voters don’t know who Chris Philp is, and they don’t care what he says,”Some senior Conservatives complain that Badenoch neglects other basics of her job, in particular the gruelling circuit of fundraising dinners and constituency events.
“She thinks she can do the job differently, but the fact is, 90% of it is graft,” said one Tory MP.“She wants to be an architect, but being leader of the opposition is more like being a bricklayer.”They added: “The problem is, the job she was applying for was not the one she thought she was applying for.She was running to be leader of the opposition, but she thought she was running to head up a right-of-centre thinktank.”Badenoch’s circle of advisers is small and close-knit.
The two major powers are her chief of staff, Lee Rowley, and her director of strategy, Rachel Maclean, both Tory former ministers who lost their seats at the last election, as well as Michael Gove’s former adviser Henry Newman.Rowley grew close to Badenoch when both served as junior ministers, and was the creative force behind her leadership campaign.But very few members of her staff have any experience of opposition, and thus how to make the weather against a government.She also faces the challenge of a creaking, diminished and disheartened party machine, with Reform UK now boasting more members.A parallel drop in funding has resulted in staff numbers at Tory HQ plummeting from 200 to about 60, with insufficient money to hire political advisers for shadow cabinet ministers.
Some say the party needs to raise about £5m in the coming months just to keep afloat,Sign up to First EditionOur morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersafter newsletter promotionOfficials are looking to move from the party’s offices in Westminster’s Matthew Parker Street to cut costs,The survival of its northern HQ in Leeds, which was opened under Boris Johnson, is under question,Within a context so generally grim, it is no surprise that some thoughts have already moved beyond how well or not Badenoch is faring and on to more existential matters, including whether to seek a formal deal or even union with Reform,“There’s a 40% chance that the Conservative party does not survive,” one Tory insider said.
Some veterans of Conservative government believe that MPs and the people around Badenoch have not come to terms with how bad things are.A former special adviser said: “Tory MPs are totally deluded about how bad it is.They’ve got this view that it will fizzle out.They think of Farage as he was in 2015 or 2017, when he was an outsider campaigning on a single issue.He was still appearing on things like Russia Today.
Now he’s standing up in parliament asking prime minister’s questions and urgent questions,“For the next 18 months Reform will be getting positive media coverage,They’re going to do well in the local elections this spring and the big ones in May 2026,”One shadow minister said: “I didn’t think this could happen, but things have actually got worse since the election,Councillors are leaving for Reform across the country; they think they’re not getting any clear sense of direction from Kemi.
The only hope we realistically have of winning the next election is to do a deal with Reform.But Nigel Farage will demand a very high price for that.”
Patients at risk without better protection for whistleblowers, says ex-NHS hospitals chief
Patient safety is at risk without better protection for NHS whistleblowers, according to a former health service chair who claims he was forced from his job after raising concerns about reviews into preventable baby deaths.Maxwell Mclean, the former chair of the Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS foundation trust, said his treatment made “an absolute mockery of the freedom to speak up” in the NHS.“This isn’t just about me. This kind of failure to be held to account is a danger to our community,” said Mclean. “It is genuinely in the public interest that a chair is supported when they try to hold a trust’s CEO to account
Unpaid carer to challenge DWP allowance overpayment penalty in court
An unpaid carer is to challenge in the courts an “unfair and nonsensical” demand by welfare officials to repay £4,600 in carer’s allowance overpayments, five years after being advised by the same department she was following benefit rules correctly.Andrea Tucker, a part-time charity shop worker who cared full-time for her mother for 15 years, told the Guardian the prospect of going to tribunal had made her ill with stress but she was determined to get justice.“First I was upset, then I was angry, then it just wore me down. But it’s like the Post Office scandal – it takes the little people to stand up,” she said.An ongoing Guardian investigation has revealed how draconian and rigidly enforced carer’s allowance rules saddled hundreds of thousands of people with huge debts in recent years
Dismay as UK poised to cut funding for global vaccination group Gavi
The UK is poised to cut funding to a global vaccination group that has inoculated more than a billion children in developing countries, a move aid groups say would be counterproductive and cost lives.The expected decision is causing particular alarm given that it would come immediately after Donald Trump effectively shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), halting much of its own vaccination work.The UK has consistently been one of the biggest single donors to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (Gavi), giving the Geneva-based public-private organisation more than £2bn over the last four years.But with the UK aid budget cut back from 0.7% to 0
Keir Starmer takes public HIV test in push to destigmatise testing for virus
Keir Starmer has taken a public HIV test in an effort to destigmatise testing for the virus and to highlight HIV Testing Week.The prime minister took a home test at 10 Downing Street alongside the soul singer Beverley Knight. “It’s really important to do it and I’m really pleased to be able to do it. It’s very easy, very quick,” he said.Told by Richard Angell, the chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust, an HIV and sexual health charity, that he was thought to be the first prime minister of a G7, European or Nato nation to take a public HIV test, Starmer said he was surprised
Campaign launched to make public toilets a legal requirement in Britain
It will involve spending more than a penny, but it’s a call that is likely to be viewed sympathetically by anyone who has ever been caught short while out and about.A campaign has been launched to make the provision of public toilets a legal requirement for central government and local authorities after a slump in the number of loos in town centres, parks and other locations.The Legalise Loos campaign is the brainchild of the British Toilet Association (BTA), a not-for-profit members’ organisation, which estimates that the number of public conveniences has fallen by about 40% since 2000.The national shortage has been blamed in part on cash-strapped councils cutting expenditure on public loos in order to protect services they are obliged by law to provide for local people.Lavatory humour has long been a part of British culture and society, but the BTA reckons this is no laughing matter
NHS staff barred from workplace for considering Palestine demonstration
Two NHS professionals were investigated and barred from their workplace for expressing interest in organising a peaceful protest in support of Palestine during their lunch break.The therapist and nurse were accused of posing a threat to the “personal safety” of the staff at Kensington and Chelsea child and adolescent mental health service, and of “bringing the trust into disrepute” for considering the demonstration.The pair, who the Guardian is calling Layla and Maya, were told they were to be investigated and could not enter the building they worked at before being redeployed to new NHS workplaces in London.A three-month investigation into the pair’s conduct found they had no case to answer and that the trust had breached its own disciplinary policy in its treatment of them.The investigator noted that, though there was no intent from the pair to bully other staff members, two staff members did feel unsafe to come into work “as an indirect result” of their intent to organise the protest
UK Steel warns that Trump tariffs would be ‘devastating blow’
UK halves subsidies for Drax and says it must use 100% sustainable wood
BP shares jump after feared US hedge fund Elliott takes stake
Fraud trial of Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ honoree set to lift lid on startup culture
Trump’s latest tariff bid shows the old rules of trade no longer apply. Scraps of paper will not save us | Greg Jericho
Tech firms call for zonal electricity pricing in UK to fuel AI datacentres