When Kemi Badenoch called a hastily arranged speech on national security last week, it was so last minute that even one of the Conservative Party’s own press officers wasn’t aware it was happening.
The Tory leader used her address to demand Sir Keir Starmer increase spending on defence, only for the Prime Minister to do just that before she had barely even finished her address.
Her week worsened, as she witnessed Donald Trump give the green light to the Chagos deal, a policy that she has dedicated months to attacking.
For weary Tories, the missteps are symptomatic of party machine that has all but broken down and is a further reminder of the trudge that is life in opposition.
“Morale is low,” one senior party insider told The i Paper. “In opposition you’re irrelevant, so it’s very difficult to get people to care about what you have to say.”
Indeed, some insiders believe that the penny still hasn’t dropped for some within the shadow Cabinet of how difficult life is outside of government, with one shadow minister complaining that the press was not paying them enough attention.
“So few people in shadow Cabinet have actually been in opposition, so they don’t know what it’s like to hustle to have to fight for newspaper inches,” one source confided.
One argument put forward by Conservatives is that Badenoch is doing her best despite limited resources. Having suffered an historic defeat, the party is low not just on morale but also cash, with money from donations all but dried up.
Party bigwigs have also conducted two rounds of redundancies as they look to cut their costs, but the cutbacks have meant the Tories are having to hold the Government to account with a skeleton staff.
“A lot of people have been made redundant,” the source said. “There is no question that if you are in opposition then you will be short of money and that means you have to lay people off.”
Another insider added: “In CCHQ it’s bare bones stuff, basically. One press officer covering five briefs. And because we don’t have a big CRD [Conservative Research Department], we don’t really have the stories to feed papers, because no one’s doing actual research.
“The real issue at CCHQ is that all the talent has gone,” the source added. “Alex Wild [former director of communications] has gone, yes they’ve got Josh [Grimstone, director of comms] and Sheridan [Westlake, who served as an adviser for the length of the Tories’ time in power] but they are really stretched.”
Such is the parlous state of the party’s finances, it has led some to believe that the Tories have sunk lower than during its dark days in the wake of the 1997 and 2001 elections, during the peak New Labour years.
“It’s worse,” another senior Tory asserts. “That’s because the number of MPs is so few, the short money [cash allocated to opposition parties to help them in their parliamentary duties] is substantially reduced.
“When you only have 121 MPs you only get 121 MPs’ worth of short money. The problem starts not in CCHQ but in the Commons.”
Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London and author of The Conservative Party After Brexit: Turmoil and Transformation, agreed that the situation is tougher than at other times in history.
“There were more big beasts left after 1997, Portillo may have gone but there were other big figures there and a sense that the talent pool was wider in terms of the frontbench,” Bale said. “The obvious other difference is William Hague didn’t have to worry about a party to his right, although it is easy to forget he pushed a fairly populist agenda but he didn’t have to deal with a Ukip or a Brexit party.”
But Bale argued that the problem facing the Tories was in large part due to Badenoch herself.
“She is arguably turning out to be what people feared to begin with, which is extremely hard line and obsessed with cultural issues, and not punching the various bruises the Government so obviously has, as she should be,” he added.
It is an assessment shared by others within the party, who believe Badenoch’s failings are having a knock-on effect on donors being willing to part with their cash.
“People are getting sick of Kemi not turning up to things,” one insider sniffed. “She didn’t appear at a South West Conservative conference at the weekend and the councillors were chuntering about it.
“You can’t be both shit and lazy. If you work hard you buy yourself a lot of goodwill.”
Instead, Badenoch’s leadership rivals Robert Jenrick, James Cleverly and party chair Nigel Huddleston attended instead, leading to raised eyebrows.
A source in the leader’s office said that it was never the case that the leader attends every regional conference, “which would be nigh on impossible given the number”, adding that the party chairman traditionally fills in when the leader cannot.
“Kemi has visited a different region of the country every single week in 2025, campaigning and meeting members. She attended the Cheshire conference before recess and has campaigned with mayoral candidates in Yorkshire, the West of England and elsewhere. She will continue to be out on the road in the run-up to the locals supporting our excellent councillors, candidates and activists,” the source added, before pointing out that Badenoch is in Northern Ireland this weekend.
There are widespread concerns internally over her choices for her shadow Cabinet, particularly the decision to hand Priti Patel the role of shadow Foreign Secretary. Badenoch has already had to publicly rebuke Patel after she staunchly defended her record as home secretary despite net migration ballooning by 1.2 million under her watch.
“When she was appointed people were shocked,” an insider admitted. “There were people close to Kemi who advised her to sack Priti the other week.
“What Starmer did was clever. If you don’t have policy then you can use other tactics to distance yourself from the Corbyn years. So he sacked Rebecca Long Bailey and that sent a signal.”
Others are more inclined to sympathise with Badenoch’s predicament, however. Having inherited a party machine on its knees and devoid of ideas after 14 years of governing, the new leader has an almighty task on her hands fixing her own party, while also being stalked by the likes of Jenrick and, the Tories’ perennial king over the water, Boris Johnson.
“CCHQ is an absolute shitshow. It’s broken,” one former Tory government adviser said. “Fixing it is one of the biggest jobs that needs to be done.
“And with Jenrick, she can’t call him out for all his attack dog stuff because it just shows that she is not doing it herself. But she can’t do everything, so she will just have to let him carry on.”
Other prominent Tories, such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, have called for Johnson to stand in the expected by-election in Runcorn, after Labour’s MP for the seat, Mike Amesbury, was given a suspended sentence.
The suggestion is that there are still many Conservatives, who believe Johnson is their ready-made answer to the threat of Farage and his Reform UK party, which is now consistently above them in the polls.
But Bale was dubious of such a move, saying: “I’m sure to some within the Tory party he still holds the magic wand. But after partygate and Covid it would be very, very difficult to recreate the Boris Johnson of between 2016 and 2019.”
For now at least, there is “no appetite for regicide” as one Tory MP put it this week, but another backbencher added ominously: “Tory MPs aren’t famous for their patience.”
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