‘Kemi hates doing media’: Tory anxiety after 100 days of Badenoch leadership Open panic has yet to set in but MPs voice growing fears over leader’s approach and threat from Reform UK.
For all that the Tories are trailing behind Reform UK and Labour in the polls, with Badenoch showing few signs of turning things around, there is not yet open panic, even in a party with a tradition of removing underperforming leaders.
The two major powers are her chief of staff, Lee Rowley, and her director of strategy, Rachel Maclean, both Tory former ministers who lost their seats at the last election, as well as Michael Gove’s former adviser Henry Newman.
“What you have to remember is that for the first 18 or so months after you lose an election, especially as badly as we did, no one cares what you do,” one Tory MP said.
Within a context so generally grim, it is no surprise that some thoughts have already moved beyond how well or not Badenoch is faring and on to more existential matters, including whether to seek a formal deal or even union with Reform.
