If a press conference takes place and no one is around to take notice, can it be said to have really happened? Sometimes the most interesting thing is the person saying the thing they did not mean anyone to notice. It was always thus with Brexit.
Time was when a press conference was a relatively rare event. Called only after diplomatic summits or when there was an important piece of news to be announced. Now, though, the format has been so downgraded it is being used for when any politician needs some attention. When the feeling that no one is listening to them becomes unbearable.
It was Nigel Farage who started the current trend, with his weekly “Monday Mornings with Nige” shows during the summer. But since then, Kemi Badenoch has been suffering from severe Fomo. If she switches on the news channel and finds someone other than her talking, she has an existential crisis. She is yet to work out a way to be watching herself on TV and appearing on it at the same time. That would be her nirvana. Inner peace.
On Monday morning, Kemi called a press conference on her ideas for an inquiry into the grooming gangs. A few journalists turned up out of politeness, but no one paid much attention. Just 45 minutes of everyone’s life that no one would ever get back. You might have thought the Conservative leader would have learned her lesson from that. Bide her time until she had something worthwhile to say. A moment of hubris for a leader of the opposition whose party is polling in the high teens.
Except Kemi doesn’t roll that way: her answer to any question is to give the country more Kemi. The reason that no one is listening to her is that people have just not had enough exposure to her. More is more. So on Tuesday, Kemi was at it again. Another central London location for another presser where she would be making another pointless speech whose contents would have been far better disseminated in an email press release that everyone could have deleted on arrival. It would have saved everyone a lot of time and effort.
This time, though, Tory head office had gone out of their way to try to make Kemi feel good about herself. They had packed a posh central London room with braying Tory apparatchiks to give the impression of a sentient audience. It was almost the perfect Potemkin press conference. Something that looked on the ground as if it was the genuine article but was in fact a charade. Because Kemi was to say almost nothing that she hadn’t said dozens of times in the past month. She’s like a broken record.
Her theme for this speech was welfare reform. Or Benefits Street and the Age of Diagnosis, as she so charmingly puts it. Kemi has a way with words. Her compassion is never knowingly oversold.
Helen Whately made the introductions. She said that the job of shadow work and pensions secretary was one that no one wanted to do. But that she had begged Kemi to give it to her. Mainly because she knew she was unlikely to be offered anything else. You do wonder just how much Whately really is Team Kemi. As with the shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, she appears to be acting the part of being tougher than she really is. She certainly did nothing to bring down the welfare bill when she was in government.
Then came Kemi. All warmth and charm. Prone to the most wondrous magical thinking. Because she wanted to express a hint of contrition. The Tories – not her, obviously – had made a few mistakes in the 14 years they had been in government. That was because being in government had been very difficult, necessitating some tough choices.
But now that she was out of government, she had come to realise that being in government was actually incredibly easy. You just had to do whatever she said, because there was no chance of it happening any time soon. And by the time of the next election, everyone would have forgotten what she had said. Come to think of it, they would have forgotten by the end of the morning. It was the Unbearable Lightness of Being.
First the caveat. There had been some huge unexpected and unwanted shocks. Brexit and the pandemic. Sorry? I thought you were the one who was insistent that Brexit had been a brilliant idea, and would bring us all untold economic benefits. And now you’re trying to casually distance yourself from it. As if you and the Tories had nothing to do with it. That was some cheek. At least apologise. Maybe there is some hope for a customs union after all. Let’s hope Labour was listening.
The rest was just standard Kemi. Everyone on benefits was gaming the system, and doing anything to stay out of work. Even the two-thirds who were in work and claiming benefits couldn’t be trusted. People should just man – or woman – up and get on with their lives. Vans should go round housing estates with a loudspeaker blaring: “Get out of bed and go to work, you lazy fuck.” Couples who had more than two children and were out of work should be made to eat their own babies.
There were no ifs and buts. Kemi lives in a binary world: those who agree with her and those who don’t. The latter category have been put on notice. There is no room for seeing diagnosis as a positive, a chance for damaged men and women to start fulfilling their potential. Or for the idea that the pandemic might have badly affected the mental health of countless people. No. They were all chancers. Grifting on benefits street. She can’t see the difference between genuine need and someone trying it on.
By now, everyone was rather losing interest. Even Kemi. She quickly wrapped things up and the audience drifted back to Conservative HQ. It hadn’t been a bad way to waste a morning. Almost festive. The coffee had been free, at least, and it had got them out the office. Now they had to prepare for tomorrow’s press conference.
The Bonfire of the Insanities by John Crace (Guardian Faber Publishing, £16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
