British politics is starting to look post-Conservative. That isn’t a forecast of extinction for Kemi Badenoch’s party, just an observation of decline. Their agenda-setting days are behind them. Their loyal voters are old and they are not recruiting new ones.
There is vigour on the right of the political spectrum, but the most energised people prefer burning things to conserving them. In parliament, Badenoch is still leader of the official opposition but in swaths of the country, the role of chief antagonist to the government has been usurped by Nigel Farage. Every speech at the Tory conference in Manchester has been a strangulated plea for relevance.
