As Bad as It Gets

No matter how many free hits Keir Starmer offers up to her, Kemi Badenoch somehow manages to keep punching herself in the face

‘Would you mind pointing that somewhere else?’

Organisations tend to take on the characters of the people who lead them. The reason Reform UK is a chaotic, ramshackle party that attracts bigots and cranks, is because its leader is a chaotic ramshackle man who attracts bigots and cranks. If the current UK Government appears confused and panicky about what it is doing and why, that’s precisely because the man who is running it is similarly confused and panicky. The rot almost always starts at the top.

However, the best example of this tendency can be found in the modern day Conservative party, which is currently led by one Kemi Badenoch.

To say that Badenoch has had a poor start to her leadership is an understatement of almost comic proportions. Since becoming Conservative leader her party has suffered its worst ever local election results, losing seats in parts of the country that have been Conservative since anyone still alive could remember, and is currently just two polling points away from slipping into fourth place behind the Lib Dems.

Largely invisible on the national stage, she emerges once a week at Prime Minister’s Questions, at which point she pulls off the almost admirable feat of not only missing whatever open goal Keir Starmer has set up for her that week, but actively booting herself in the head in the process.