In The Dorchester Hotel, hordes of Tory politicians, members and donors met for The Spring Lunch last week, supporting Conservative marginal seats and Women2Win. Tables cost a pretty penny, people were paying for raffle items and Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, by all accounts, gave a stirring speech on the state of the party and where it goes next.
The only thing is that – even for those who enjoyed the speech – people had their minds elsewhere. As one MP in attendance put it to me: “After just spending thousands and thousands of pounds on the Tory party, people were turning to me and asking: ‘So, who is it that is going to be leading us into the next election?’ It was just assumed it wasn’t Kemi.”
The room at The Dorchester may have been convinced that her days are inevitably numbered, but according to our latest panel of members, the party is split: 47.9 per cent believe that Badenoch will probably not, or definitely not, lead the Conservatives into the next election, compared to 48.3 per cent who think she will definitely, or probably, be leading the party at the next GE. There were only four per cent left undecided.
It is a very similar story when it comes to members’ beliefs as to whether or not she should be the person to take the Conservatives into the next election. With a positive belief that she should definitely, or probably, lead the party at the time taking a lead over the negative options by 8.4 per cent, with 4.9 per cent saying they don’t know.
But what a number of Badenoch’s parliamentary colleagues have been telling me, and I’m tempted to agree, is that something has got to give in order to see some change in her, and the party’s, fortunes and favourability.
One of the options she has is to move faster on policy development, and four of her shadow cabinet colleagues have confirmed to me that this is something that is set to happen (though the speeding up has still yet to be confirmed by the leadership itself).
“There is an understanding amongst the shadow cabinet that the policy programme needs to, and is going to be, accelerated,” one tells me.
Another adds: “We know things need to move with more urgency. We have learnt that and it is inevitable that the policy review will move faster.”
It is understood that movement will come especially quickly on subjects like immigration, where the party feels a vacuum is growing for Reform to occupy, while there are some shadow departments even making the move to request spending commitments for their new policies.
It will come as a relief to the more than two thirds of members (67.4 per cent) who want to see faster movement when it comes to the Conservative Party’s policy programme development, with just under a third thinking the party is going at the right pace on the policy front.
It is not just policy up for debate, it is the Conservative Party brand – and more than half of those surveyed thought the party needed to continue to address its mistakes while in government in order to win back trust from voters.
It is interesting to see a majority given it sparks debate within the parliamentary party. As one CCHQ insider said to me recently: “I hate when people keep going on about 14 years when we continued to be reelected. We must have been doing something that people liked within that period of time. We should be saying it more.”
A shadow cabinet minister agrees: “Our party made mistakes in government, yes. We also did some fantastic things, like on education and leaving a growing economy. If we continue to talk of a failing legacy it will be a self-fulfilling fantasy in which people don’t ever want to come back to us, because why would they? If we think we were s**t in government, why would someone else trust us? We need to sing some of our own virtues because nobody else will do it for us.”
With the position the party finds itself in, some positivity, optimism and ambition may well be needed to translate policy and principles into an actual vision that lands with those who should, naturally, find themselves voting Conservative. After all, it’s about winning hearts, as well as minds – and it is something Kemi Badenoch, her LOTO team and shadow cabinet need to work out how to do according to our latest panel.
