With the budget now out of the main news cycle and the reaction being fairly negative (although not Truss-level catastrophic), the white-washed Tories have predictably elected Kemi Badenoch. I'd like to hear more thoughts on what the Tories do and if there's a path to revival at the next election, despite Labour's 140-odd seat majority. Personally think Labour have done enough in 3-4 months to be a lingering, one-term government but I'm not sure if Kemi can reach out to centre-ground voters AND Reform voters at the same time. With Farage going nowhere (apart from seeing his mate Trump), I can only see another split vote on the right. Kemi's shadow cabinet is also very questionable and I personally think a more moderate candidate (in the mould of a Cameron/Osborne era type Tory) could and should have made the comeback path much more smoother.
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The Tories lost the election due to the public view that they were incompetent and that they had been in power for too long. Not on an ideological basis.
I agree with you that a more moderate candidate would have been better as they didn't lose based on any particular disagreement with their ideology. I think her main job is to unite the Tory party and get everyone singing from the same song sheet over a long period of time without any scandals or in-fighting. I think if she can do that she will have a good chance at the next election. She isn't a million miles from the center and being leader over a long period of time brings everyone more central.
Under normal circumstances Labour's massive majority would mean they would be certainties for the next election too but I really don't feel that this time. There were a lot of unique circumstances that lead to the huge win which can easily be gone in 5 years.
Strongly agree - job is to unite. Kemi isn't far-right but I think she's known for dabbling in culture wars and the war on woke etc. My issue is that just banging on about wokeness won't win you elections and i'd rather hear coherent, constructive policy debates on how a centre-right Government can improve Britain. And yes, this is about competency over pure ideology, Kemi will definitely need to stop in-fighting and factionalism (I don't think she will as she's too divisive) to brand the Tories as electable and sane again. Lastly, Labour's majority is big but around 100 or so of the seats are majorities of less than 7-8,000 which would only require a 5-6% national polling swing to win back. Reform came second in 98 seats, many in Tory-held seats that allowed Labour to slide in through a split right-wing vote. There's also plenty of Labour MPs in rural, farming constituencies (the most in their history, think up to 100) - the inheritance tax on farms has virtually ensured that farmer's won't vote Labour again meaning one of Tory or Reform (Lib Dems also do remarkably well in some rural agricultural communities) can benefit.
Kemi not bad enough
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