The sign behind the podium read: “The Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch MP, leader of HM opposition.” It felt like a reminder. Not just to the handful of Conservative loyalists who had bothered to turn up for the speech at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in London. But to Kemi herself.
Badenoch and her party are on the verge of an existential breakdown. Every week they seem to slide further and further into irrelevance. The question is no longer whether the Tories can present themselves as a credible government in waiting in four years’ time; it’s whether they will have become extinct by then. And whatever happens, Kemi will almost certainly not still be around as leader.
