Our one Tory chance of fixing the existential omnicrisis?

Putting Badenoch in Number 10 would be a risk. But a risk is better than guaranteed decline.

Editor’s note: Our view on the leadership election is that nothing will change regardless of the result – the party as a whole is rotten. But Collingwood is feeling particularly optimistic and we didn’t want to spoil his fun.

The Tories face perhaps the most important leadership contest in almost half a century. The candidates are either second rate avatars for the liberal consensus social, economic and foreign policies that have led us down a catastrophic cul-de-sac, or are verging on certifiably insane in one important area of policy and are therefore unfit to lead the country. The exception is Kemi Badenoch.

Perhaps as Prime Minister, she would not be able to change anything, given the paucity of talent in the ‘Conservative’ Party and a Civil Service that is both unfit for purpose and implacably opposed to any policy that veers outside that aforementioned disastrous consensus. In fact, that would be the most likely outcome. Nevertheless, Badenoch would be the only chance of changing course.

First, Britain does not have problems to solve: it has an existential omnicrisis. Dealing with this needs somebody who has more than a few ideas. It requires somebody who can look at the overall systems of governance and policy, pick a direction, and craft a series of policies that build upon each other toward that end point. It seems only one candidate has grasped this. The rest are just regurgitating the same empty lines about "dynamism" and "prosperity" and "lowering taxes to put money in people's pockets”.

Secondly, many of those problems would benefit from a STEM background, as opposed to PPE. The above solution needs an engineer’s clarity of thought and a systems mindset. They also need an understanding of data and what new technology can offer. We have enough PPE degrees.

Third, given the state of the country, Badenoch's lack of involvement in creating this mess is an advantage. We cannot have more ministers who fail upward to try different versions of the same catastrophic policies. No more Blairism in Blue. No more Osbornomics. No more careerists unencumbered by political principle or strategy. We cannot continue like that and survive as a prosperous, first world nation.

Fourthly, the Tory Party surely cannot survive in power like that. The commentariat has not yet realised how powerful the ‘Time for a Change’ impulse will be in 2024. The Tories will have been in power for fourteen years by the next election. In that time, we have seen declining productivity, stagnating wages, increasing income and regional inequality, sociocultural degeneration, had none of the obvious problems solved (crime, immigration, housing, education, the trade balance, debt, and foreign policy grand strategy), and a general sense of inertia and cluelessness hangs over the nation.

If the Tory Party is to stand a chance holding power, it must present themselves as the party of change now and score some wins for ordinary people in the process. While planning an entire system overhaul for the country to drag it back off the slipway to oblivion, it could pick some low hanging fruit – such as stamping hard on crime (including sentencing), closing the borders, winning some culture wars and presenting a plan for housing and infrastructure building. This, however, would take somebody with the will to do so.

At the very least, Badenoch has the intellectual muscle and the rock ribs to actually fight Labour and the establishment on its awful, divisive cultural policies and win. That would make everybody in the country with commonsense feel better and give them space to speak out and fight back.

Briton cannot bear Sunak, Truss or Mordaunt taking over at Number 10, pretending, like Leonid Brezhnev at the end, to be confident of improvement while trying a repacked and rewarmed version of the same failed recipe. Perhaps Badenoch would be no different. Indeed, that is the most likely outcome. However, she has that something about her that makes many of us at least question our deep cynicism.

And while the ‘Conservative’ Party is probably not worth saving, perhaps the country is from a Labour-Lib-SNP coalition to break up the Union and by force of law cement Blairism’s place, untouchable thenceforth, for a century.

Putting Badenoch in Number 10 would be a risk. But a risk is better than guaranteed decline.