Badenoch rating falls to zero

Whitewavemark2

I think the exact opposite. If they lean to the right then reform will undoubtedly benefit.

They need to provide a home for the right leaning centrist.

They need to provide a home for the right leaning centrist.

I so agree.

They cannot be a pale imitation of Reform by leaning further rightward. Reform 'Lite' will not attract sufficient voters who will surely, if they are 'alt-right' (for want of a better phrase), vote for Reform.

Unfortunately the more intellectually 'mature' members were either kicked out by Johnson in favour of the 'yes-men', or have left having seen the writing on the wall.

I still can’t believe that Tobias Ellwood is no longer an MP. Even as a lifelong Labour voter I still had so much respect for many Conservatives MP’s and they’re all but gone. Much of it started by Johnson.

Whitewavemark2

The one nation Tory I really mean. They do still exist, and must feel very adrift.

Lots of ordinary right-leaning "one nation " Tories have no home now.

Mamie

Given the positive response from commerce and industry to the EU / UK agreement, I think it is hard for the Conservatives to claim to be the party of business any more.
As for Badenoch, I find there is a lot of ranting and not much content.

I think that is the most frustrating change we have seen.

We need the "middle-class" propensity to aquire knowledge, spread their wings, set goals for education and mobility. They often invest in a stable lifestyle, but are also the majority of small business owners. They invest time and money in the countryside, community and culture.

Now we have two parties competing to be the party if the super-rich, mainly put into power by those so afraid of knowledge they substitute baseline opinion for thinking and learning.

Elizabethlovejoy

I think she lost the plot when she described Liberal Democrats as the sort of people who mend the church roof and who everyone likes…. Has anyone told her that used to be the conservative home ground and should be exactly her target members? I was a centrist conservative pre Brexit and now a Liberal Democrat( ps I literally did organise the village church roof repair!)

It was preordained that you would become a LibDems then….

Gin

I only hear Badenoch’s constant. negativity. I have no idea how she would solve our major problems, she just shouts down anything Labour puts forward. I have not heard if she has put forward a single solution to help those in poverty.

Labour spent their time shouting down anything the Tories proposed as well. 🙄

Meanwhile ...Tories are mad if they chuck out another leader yet again!!

I'm frankly rather sick if all of them (politicians)!

Given the positive response from commerce and industry to the EU / UK agreement, I think it is hard for the Conservatives to claim to be the party of business any more.
As for Badenoch, I find there is a lot of ranting and not much content.

eazybee

Really?
After Starmer's betrayal.
I doubt it.

How on earth has Starmer "betrayed" Badenoch?

Do explain.

Should've kept Sunak, but I don't think he wanted the job.

I guess it’s down to whether the current shadow cabinet are the best current MPs the party has to lead. Looking at the list, I don’t think they are - there are better people who aren’t on the shadow cabinet.

Here's the info on where they all sit now:

conservativehome.com/2025/05/16/our-survey-kemi-badenoch-falls-to-nil-point-rating-in-our-latest-shadow-cabinet-league-table/

nanna8

I like Kemi Badenoch, I think she speaks well.Have to say she isn’t the usual sort of leader the Tories go for but a refreshing change.

I like her, too. She speaks well in Question Time. Stands up to all the blather in there.

I think she lost the plot when she described Liberal Democrats as the sort of people who mend the church roof and who everyone likes…. Has anyone told her that used to be the conservative home ground and should be exactly her target members? I was a centrist conservative pre Brexit and now a Liberal Democrat( ps I literally did organise the village church roof repair!)

It is early days yet
Ur I will admit after rhose firemen lost their lives when met Dtsrmer spoke of his sorry usually other parties follow suit

I wouldn't worry. The Tories need time to re-group and rediscover who they are. Meanwhile Reform will crash and burn and things will right themselves in the end.

Or maybe we'll just have a Labour government from now on...

I would keep my eye on the Lib/Dems and the Greens though too...

For WhiteWavemark – you seem to be struggling with accurate recollection, your “Tories got rid of their best people during the Brexit fracas. You can thank Johnson for contributing to the Tory’s decline.” could well mislead others who’ve not been paying attention?

**I’m not a Tory, but BoJo’s big election win in 2019 was based on the ‘Get It Done’ slogan, apparently popular. The Commons vote in Dec 2020 re the EU-UK Brexit trade deal was passed by 521 to 73 in the Commons. Mrs May’s Brexit ditherings had resulted in her being replaced.

A more logical assessment is that BoJo’s downfall was almost totally due to a mixture of Covid, and his own arrogance. But for the Pandemic, he’d likely still be PM now. (Oh, and any Corbyn fans still wistful for his brand of leadership could reflect that if HE had been PM when Covid struck, they’d still be trying to agree how many seats at the table to discuss vaccinations should be occupied by the Unions, Diane Abbott, Momentum, and any other factions they have to keep onside?).

After BoJo’s demise, the Tory membership managed to pick the wildly incompetent, and charisma-free Liz Truss as leader, and I’d suggest that HER failures – in record time too! -- have obliterated Tory support far more than BoJo’s party idiocy? And since then, she’s shown from her own utterances that she’s totally delusional, on a Chump-like scale?

NB >> those who like SKS should check his record at the CPS (a joke according to lawyers of that era), and reflect on assorted policy failures in just under a year, the cold-weather payments fiasco, and his bold claims about immigration (still breaking records!) and his hypocritical plan to expel them (Rwanda was a disgrace, but Albania is quite OK?!).

** No, I’m not a Tory, have a healthy distrust of ALL our politicos, any badge, based on experience over some 7 voting decades. Back in the 80s I suggested that we should hand over our Commons to somewhere sensible like Holland or Denmark to run things, they could make a better job on about 2 days a week, we’d have had a far nicer better-run country if we’d done so!

Parsley3

www.globalplayer.com/videos/2JsScNWBKpt/
I heard Priti Patel steamrollering Nick Ferrari this morning on LBC if anyone wants a listen. It was a negative rant about the EU deal and ended with her blaming the government for failing to get food into Gaza. She wouldn't make a good party leader either. We do need some good Conservative frontrunners but I can't think of a single candidate and I can hardly believe that, in my lifetime, I am seeing the demise of the Conservative Party but that's what seems to be happening. It is obvious now that Badenoch was a poor choice.

Patel is just blooming awful and couldn’t run a bath, let alone a political party!

ronib

I thought the leader of the opposition majored in negativity - Starmer certainly did when he held that position.

Do you didn’t realise he was very supportive of Tory action during worst parts of Covid.

The role of opposition isn’t to be negative, but to hold the govt to account, a critical friend! To ensure actions are just and fair and benefit those of all parties.

Fogive me for maybe going off at a tangent - but this thread brings back strongly for me the fact that our first past the post (FPTP) electoral system is not really democratic. It could easily end up letting Farage into power on a minority vote. There is only one other European country using FPTP and it is Belarus. This tells us something! We do need fair votes, whoever is leading whichever party.

sparkynan

I would like to see a prime minister that is 100% truthful, who never blames anything on the other party, and says it as it is. There is no easy simple answer to the illegal immigration problem, there is no easy simple answer to enforcing the criminal justice system, there is no easy simple answer to reforming the NHS or the education system amd making them suitable for purpose. I think any government would be too scared to be truthful and change the right things. I’m personally fed up with, he said she said, and broken promises.

Have you ever read Candide sparkynan?

Maybe sometimes politicians have to break promises because things change politically eg Trump being re elected. I don’t believe that politicians, in general, are liars (with the exception of Johnson who, imo wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him in the face).

What betrayal?

I would like to see a prime minister that is 100% truthful, who never blames anything on the other party, and says it as it is. There is no easy simple answer to the illegal immigration problem, there is no easy simple answer to enforcing the criminal justice system, there is no easy simple answer to reforming the NHS or the education system amd making them suitable for purpose. I think any government would be too scared to be truthful and change the right things. I’m personally fed up with, he said she said, and broken promises.

Absolutely! They will use her as the fall guy or gal, then replace her probably with the chief rat Cameron again.

In the Labour Party local branches and CLP (constituency Labour parties) do discuss and have a role in forming policy/putting resolutions forward including criticism . Ttho sometimes 'heard" and sometimes not)

Do Conservative branches do this? Do they discuss policy and contribute towards it? I imagine there must be discussions around local issues and elections with Reform in the wings for some.