Let’s be honest, Kemi Badenoch is a disappointment. I recognise it’s only a matter of months since she became leader, but in that time she has done nothing to prove the Conservatives are worth a second look from millions of voters who deserted them at the election.
In fact, the opposite has happened.
Since she won, the Tories have gone backward in the polls and are now around 20 per cent with Reform at 26 per cent. Normally a minority party like Reform would crash and burn after a general election. Under Farage’s energetic and much-travelled leadership – Clacton, Westminster, Washington - it’s Reform which has made the weather.
Robert Jenrick would have been the better choice. Kemi has no cut through.
Kemi should take a leaf from Trump’s playbook. While out of office he criss-crossed America every day making speeches to people who felt that they had been ignored both financially and politically. Over here many voters the same.
If Kemi does want to hang on she should not stay at home but should fund a battle bus and hit the road. Frankly, I don’t think it’s in her. And I know from talking to senior Tories they feel the same way. So, it’s only a matter of time - my bet this summer- that either she calls it a day or is pushed.
The question is who could follow her and make a success of the job? Who has the intellectual strength and energy to take on Reform for the soul of the Right. It can only be Jenrick.
He has been making waves over the last 24 hours about a disgraceful move by the independent Sentencing Council to give minorities and women special treatment in the courts at the expense of what he called ‘’straight, white men’’.
Under new rules coming into force on April 1, judges and magistrates must commission a pre-sentence report about criminals if they come from an ‘’ ethnic minority, cultural minority, and/or faith minority community.’’
The move, which comes following lobbying by the respective groups would also apply to all women and transgender criminals.
Jenrick, speaking as shadow Justice Secretary told the Commons; ‘’Sir Keir Starmer sneered at people who said we have a two-tier justice system. But here we have it in black and white. This is an inversion of the rule of law. We now have a two-tier justice under Two-Tier Keir.’’
Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch went head of the head of the leadership of the Tory party
GB News
This was good stuff from Jenrick but he was even better on the Radio 4 Today programme this morning.
Despite the fact that even Labour has said the new rules are wrong, presenter Emma Barnett took up the cudgels for the minorities quoting a magistrate who had written into the show saying minorities were suffering and that the rule was a good one.
She should have identified the magistrate. Did he or she come from a minority? Which part of the country did they come from? Male or female? Barnett didn’t disclose any of these details.
Jenrick swatted them away and in response to a statement from the Sentencing Council basically called them liars. That’s what we want. Somebody leading from the front on an important issue. Sadly, that turns out not to be Kemi.
