It’s been a round-the-clock job. If you’re wondering why you haven’t seen Kevin Hollinrake, Laura Trott and Chris Philp in the same room recently, it’s because they have all been otherwise engaged. Each tasked with a gruelling, daily eight-hour shift to make sure that Kemi Badenoch remains silent. The doors are all locked and her phone and laptop have been removed. KemiKaze must be protected. And the person she needs protection from is herself.
The plan is for Kemi to do and say as little as possible. Because it’s far easier to let Robert Jenrick do all the talking. Honest Bob has done the morning radio programmes, he’s done the Laura Kuenssberg show and everything has gone exactly how Team Kemi would have wished. The more Tory members get to see of Honest Bob, the less there is of him to like.
Given enough time, Jenrick could come third in a two-horse race. He doesn’t appear to have any deeply held beliefs. Everything is a pose, calculated on what he thinks the Tory membership want to hear. If they were to miraculously demand a return to freedom of movement, then he would happily offer them that. Honest Bob is nothing but a homunculus hidden inside a teenager’s body.
Most unforgivably of all, Ozempic Bob isn’t even a very good hater. He says the correct unpleasantnesses in the right order but there’s a hollowness to them. He doesn’t sound as if, deep down, he really means it. Even his supporters are half-hearted about him. Tory MP Richard Holden described Jenrick’s best quality as having a “slightly clearer vision of where he wants to take the country”. That “slightly” is utterly damning.
His hatred is just a charade. You’re left with the feeling that there might, once, a long time ago when he was a soaking wet Cameroon, have been the makings of an almost decent bloke. Actually, scrub that. I got a bit carried away there.
But KemiKaze is the real deal. When she hates a group of people, they stay hated. There are no half measures. No reservations. And the Tory members love her for that. It doesn’t matter whether she’s right or wrong. Whether she’s completely deranged.
What matters is that she’s authentic. There is a purity to her nastiness. An absence of artifice that gives other people a licence to indulge their own nastiness. George Orwell’s daily Two Minutes Hate isn’t nearly enough for Kemi. She would barely have got started in 120 seconds. Give it 15 minutes at least.
Even so, Kemi still needs to be carefully curated by her supporters. Which is where the 24-hour supervision comes in. With hatred this pure, you can only unleash it on your supporters in small doses. Otherwise the hatred might spill over. It has to be contained.
It’s one thing for Kemi and the Tory members to share precious moments of hatred. It’s another when the hatred becomes visible to the rest of the country. When it becomes apparent that culture wars are all she really has to offer. That is a reality that cannot be allowed. Which is why the Philpster, zombie knife in hand, stands guard over KemiKaze from midnight to 8am every day.
The problems started at the Tory conference when Kemi was on public display for four days in a row. Where her carers were not in a position to control what came out of her mouth. This was Kemi Unplugged. So first we got an all-out attack on maternity pay. New mothers were basically just spongers, having babies so they could get a free holiday. Any woman who didn’t go back to work a week after giving birth wasn’t a true patriot. Probably an illegal immigrant.
Next in KemiKaze’s sights were the civil service. A disgrace to the nation. She would have happily locked up 10% of them in prison. Assuming she could find the spaces for them. Hell, why not just execute them. Would make everything a lot simpler. Finally, she had it in for parents of autistic children. They were just trying it on. Autism was just a fad. Like anxiety. It was time everyone just pulled themselves together and stopped expecting the nanny state to look after them.
Needless to say, this was all music to the ears of the Tory members. It chimed with what they had always felt but had dared not express. But for Hollinrake, Trott and the Philpster it set off alarm bells. This level of derangement was for their ears only.
So now they are in the mood to say no to almost anything on Kemi’s behalf. They’ve turned down a debate hosted by the Sun on the grounds that the paper is not sufficiently pro-Kemi. Imagine. Just how pro Kemi do you have to be before you are deemed to be pro Kemi? Their demands that the BBC organise a debate for an audience exclusively made up of Tory members was understandably refused. So now there is no BBC debate. The only debate to go ahead is GB News. Then all their viewers are Tory members.
And it’s working. Honest Bob’s odds lengthen by the day. While Kemi says it best when she says nothing at all. Meanwhile there is almost a Tory news blackout in the media, now that everyone has decided they have had more than enough of Jenrick. No shadow ministers appear on the morning round. Why put themselves through the effort when they know they will probably be out of a job in a month’s time.
A year in Westminster: John Crace, Marina Hyde and Pippa Crerar
On Tuesday 3 December, join Crace, Hyde and Crerar as they look back at a political year like no other, live at the Barbican in London and livestreamed globally.
Book tickets here or at guardian.live
Taking the Lead by John Crace is published by Little, Brown (£18.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
