Badenoch enjoys her first, and probably last, Tory conference leader’s speech

Kemi Badenoch sounded confident, though it was hard to know whether this was because she has reconciled herself to the inevitable. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

This is the end, beautiful friend, the end. And not a moment too soon. The coup de grace, the leader’s speech from Kemi Badenoch. Her first and almost certainly her last. Half her membership want her gone now. The other half are happy to give her until next year.

But just for this hour, all hostilities were to be forgiven. No matter that this conference had been dead on arrival. A celebration of annihilation. This was to be a remembrance of times past. A collective narcosis. The Tories’ very own Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.