Well I have listened to the BBC, and I have absorbed the teachings of Sir John Curtice – and frankly I have had about as much analysis of the local elections as I can take. My conclusion, from the point of view of an ardent Conservative: there is still absolutely everything to play for.
We have three years until the next election must be called, and polls say we already have the most popular party leader. Kemi Badenoch had a good campaign. She seems fresher and more full of bounce and zap than her rivals.
She speaks in full, frank and unpremeditated sentences. If you can, watch a video of the moment when she takes on some heckler in Billericay. He or she was badgering her about anti-Semitism and her principled stance on Israel – and Kemi walloped that ball back so hard over the net that it more or less vanished down her opponent’s throat.
She has a fearlessness and knowledge of her own mind that are enjoyable to watch – and a positive tonic by comparison with the stammering glottal machine language of the Prime Minister. At the time of writing, she also seems to have done better than forecast at the ballot box.
The Tories can point to victories in Westminster and Wandsworth, to show that they still have a voter base among the aspirant professional middle- classes. At the same time, we were able to hold off a strong challenge from Reform in areas like Harlow and Bexley. I am not going to over-egg this, but that is the essence of the great coalition that swept the Tories to power in 2019. It can be rebuilt.
The opportunity is there, because Starmer is turning out to be so dreadful that Labour has just recorded its worst ever set of election results: 16 per cent! Starmer was endlessly cited on the doorstep as the main reason why people refuse to vote Labour. Over the next few weeks we will hear much discussion of whether or not the Labour MPs are going to kick him out.
Kemi Badenoch has a fearlessness and knowledge of her own mind that are enjoyable to watch, says Boris Johnson – especially in comparison with our stammering Prime Minister
They clearly have a very difficult dilemma. If they move against him in sufficient numbers – or if his Cabinet rebels – then they may just be able to prise his frozen fingers from the wheel. But what is the plan? The Labour MPs do not have a replacement around which the party can unite. It is very far from clear that Angela Rayner or Ed Miliband would be significantly more popular with the electorate. Wes Streeting is not beloved of the party’s sizeable left wing. Andy Burnham is not even in parliament.
Labour MPs know that if they turf out Starmer, and have a shambolic crapshoot of a leadership contest, then they risk the very same charge – ‘chaos’ – that is currently their best and most effective attack line against the serially regicidal Tories. It therefore seems increasingly likely that they will simply bottle it, and that Starmer will stagger on.
But frankly it is getting to the stage where it doesn’t matter whether or not they replace their leader. Starmer has now done so much damage that the Labour position may not be retrievable.
Yesterday morning he popped up to give a typically android Press statement, in which he said that he would not ‘walk away’ from the premiership – in other words, that he was not going to resign. He then tried to explain the rout.
He could hardly claim that all mid-term governments have difficult local election results, because that patently isn’t true. Look at the local results of May 2021, when the incumbent mid-term Tories pummelled Labour and won the Hartlepool by-election.
So Starmer had a different explanation. The reason the Labour party is so unpopular, he said, is that people don’t think they have yet done enough to transform the country. ‘The people have sent a message,’ he said, ‘about the pace of change.’
According to Starmer, people want Labour to go faster in changing the country; but frankly I feel he is being too modest about his achievements. He has only been in power for two years, and he is well on the way to changing this country beyond recognition. He is turning it into a complete basket case.
He is changing the face of rural Britain, with his persecution of the farmers, and with two pubs now closing every day.
He has gravely damaged the educational system, abandoning crucial Tory reforms and becoming the first government in Europe to tax schools, so that about 100 schools have closed, and the taxpayer is now forced to educate thousands of former fee-paying kids.
He has cratered Britain’s global standing, so that Americans no longer believe we are a reliable ally, the Mauritians think we are fools, and the EU believe that we will soon pay them billions for the privilege of undemocratically bowing to their vexatious and job-destroying regulations.
Above all he is fast changing the whole moral climate of the country, so that we are turning into a bloated, welfarist, work-from-home culture where shoplifting has become epidemic, where rapists and other serious offenders are wandering the streets, and where taxes are now so high – the highest ever – that huge numbers of talented people are actually fleeing Britain in a brain drain.
My dear Keir: the pace of change has been extraordinary, and it is all for the worse. Sooner or later there will have to be a general election, and at that moment people will think hard about the new government.
According to Sir John Curtice – looking about as venerable as David Attenborough himself – the era of two-party politics is over. Well, maybe; but the British people are creatures of habit and, as Disraeli said, they are no lovers of coalitions.
The two insurgent parties – Reform and the Greens – seem to me to suffer from a narrowness of their agenda: they believe, one way or another, that the best way to get elected in this country is to find a minority group and blame them for the ills of the people.
Kemi celebrates the Tories retaking Westminster council. Labour MPs know that if they turf out Starmer, they risk the same ‘chaos’ that is currently their best attack line against the Tories
Reform and the Greens both suffer from a narrowness of their agenda. The Reform lot think all problems could be simply solved if we were tougher on immigrants, writes Boris Johnson
The Reform lot think all problems could be solved if we were tougher on immigrants; and the Greens think we should be tougher on billionaires and Jewish people. Well, I find both manifestos dispiriting and thoroughly inadequate.
I certainly think we could be a lot tougher on illegal immigrants, and we should use Brexit powers to bring back the Rwanda scheme, for instance. But I don’t think either of the insurgents – Greens or Reform – has got a credible economic programme.
Reform is all over the place: too frightened to promise essential welfare cuts, and too incompetent, wherever they have actually run local government, to cut spending. On the contrary, Reform councils have been pathetically hiking council tax.
As for the Greens, they are an anti-capitalist nightmare.
This is where Tories always have an advantage, and where Kemi can score. By her excellent parliamentary performances she has built a fan club and the right to a hearing. She now needs to ensure by ruthless repetition that her Tories are seen as the standard-bearers of revolt against Labour’s economic disaster.
Reform did well yesterday – but not as well as expected. The Tories outperformed expectations. The gap is closing. It will not be easy, but Kemi can do it.
