On Saturday 2 November, Kemi Badenoch became the latest leader of the Conservative Party – the sixth in the past decade. A day later on 3 November, she appeared in a notably less-than-hostile interview with the BBC‘s Laura Kuenssberg. A telling moment was when Kuenssberg asked Badenoch to identify the failures which led to the Tories’ historic loss in July. Badenoch’s response shows that the Tories are still in denial about where it all went wrong for them – namely the cost of living crisis.
It’s the economy, stupid
In one exchange, Kuenssberg lightly badgered Badenoch about what had gone wrong for the Tories. Badenoch tried to wriggle out of answering, but eventually identified two issues which led to their downfall:
- Immigration.
- Taxes.
We’re going to argue that she failed to mention the actual reason the Tories lost, and that’s the cost of living crisis. Just look at this polling from YouGov on the key issues for the public:
That red line at the top is the economy; the pink line below it is health; the purple line below that is immigration. And tax? The green line right at the bottom.
As of the most recent polling, you can see that the economy, health, and immigration have become essentially joint-first issues in public discourse. It’s clear, though, that since the cost of living crisis began in 2021, ‘the economy’ has been the key issue for people. And that makes sense. Because when ordinary people talk about ‘the economy’, they’re not taking about the FTSE 100; they’re talking about the economy as it effects them. This means the cost of shopping, the cost of a mortgage, the costs of day care, etc.
If you live in the UK, and you’re not a top 5% earner like Laura Kuenssberg, you know cost-of-living is the key issue, because that’s all anyone has talked about for the past three years. It also tracks directly to voting intention, with the Tories hitting 46% in May 2021 and that percentage steadily declining as people felt the pinch
We further think it’s the case that immigration is only such a big issue for the public because the Tories made it that way. They had no good answers to the cost of living crisis, so they needed something to distract from their failures.
While the number of people moving between countries has increased, the UK is far from facing collapse, as Southampton & Winchester Vistors Group highlights:
Is the UK under more pressure from asylum seekers and refugees than other countries?
No it is not, in spite of the picture painted by some of our politicians and media.
Out of 28 member states in the EU, the UK ranks ninth in terms of numbers of applications. In 2015, the UK received just fewer than 40 thousand asylum applications. Germany had over 400 thousand, ten times as many.
Today, for all sorts of reasons, refugee numbers are climbing. At the end of 2016, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide had risen to 65.6 million, up 6.1 million from 2014. But the vast majority of refugees (88%) live in developing countries, not wealthy industrialized ones.
And because the UK gets relatively few asylum applicants, we host fewer refugees – less than 1% of the global total. Turkey by contrast hosts the largest number of refugees of any country: it is currently giving sanctuary to 2.5 million Syrian refugees, while Jordan and Lebanon host 1.7 million between them. By the end of 2016 the UK had resettled 5,706 Syrian refugees.
And as an island off the north of Europe, we are under much less pressure from migrants than, for example, Greece. In addition, under EU (but not UN) rules, asylum seekers should claim asylum in the first safe country they come to, and can be sent back to where they first entered.
If the Tories were serious about addressing the number of refugees, they’d focus on root causes such as endless wars in the Middle East (spurned by the UK and its allies) and climate change. Instead, they scream and shout at helpless people in tiny boats. It’s a move which backfired, galvanising the Reform Party, who accepted the Tory lie that immigration is ruining the country and promised to actually do something about it.
In that sense, immigration is a key reason why the Tories lost, but not for the reason Badenoch claims.
Badenoch: endless culture wars
Of course, there was more to criticise than just one response, with both Badenoch and Kuenssberg taking flack:
"I think it is right to ask people who send their children to private schools… to pay a bit more [tax]"
Chancellor Rachel Reeves says the Budget decisions targeting people who are better off comes down to "priorities"#BBCLauraK https://t.co/i90N7Rn807 pic.twitter.com/6oTySkLTWh
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) November 3, 2024
Laura Kuenssberg blatantly framing the budget as an attack on class.
Never mind poverty- “rightly or wrongly you’ve put taxes up on private jets and private schools”
On the other hand Kemi Badenoch is introduced as the “bold and radical” new leader of opposition.
#BBCLauraK pic.twitter.com/5BNMYMyolI— Deirdre Heenan (@deirdreheenan) November 3, 2024
Laura Kuenssberg: “You’ve put taxes up on private jets – rightly or wrongly”
Glad to see someone fighting the corner of private jet users in a country with more food banks than McDonald’s restaurants #BBCLauraK
— David (@Zero_4) November 3, 2024
Laura Kuenssberg accusing Rachel Reeves of a budget based on “class” targeting private schools and wealthy landowners. If she thinks this is class war, wait until she hears what the Tories have been doing for the last 14 years.
— Frances Ryan (@DrFrancesRyan) November 3, 2024
Many have said that Badenoch is likely to deliver endless culture wars and little else. One advocate of Badenoch is writer J.K. Rowling who has similarly become embroiled in the culture wars (this tweet references David Tennant’s recent criticisms of the new Tory leader’s stance on transgender people):
My thoughts and prayers are with David Tennant at this very difficult time. https://t.co/5zM8WmyGSx
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) November 2, 2024
As people have pointed out, however, Badenoch’s rampant culture wars will target more than just transgender people:
Kemi Badenoch on:
Revenge porn: "We shouldn't legislate for hurt feelings."
Abortion: voted against clinic buffer zones & pills-by-post
Maternity leave: "It's excessive. We need more personal responsibility."
JK Rowling celebrates a hit to women's rights to spite trans people pic.twitter.com/yygHPeL2a7
— Strewth! 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈 (@StrewthQueen) November 3, 2024
People have also rightly pointed out that Badenoch’s endless culture wars likely aren’t going to resonate with people who have actual problems:
Out of the documented idiocy that Badenoch has spouted in her relatively short career,
Her foray into the "Culture Wars" has been the most futile!
Why?
Because the vast majority of the UK people have far, far more important issues they care about!An irrelevant post! 🤡 https://t.co/17P4jfsVbi
— BaldyBane🌹😷🇵🇸🏴💙💜🇱🇧 (@bane_baldy) November 2, 2024
This is clear in the polling, with Badenoch even more unpopular than the historically unpopular Keir Starmer:
While many Britons don't know how they feel about Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick currently, those with an opinion are largely unfavourable
Robert Jenrick
Favourable: 13% (+5 vs 30-31 July)
Unfavourable: 40% (+13)
Don't know: 47% (-18)Kemi Badenoch
Favourable: 12% (+1)… pic.twitter.com/DLyg3hSl3m— YouGov (@YouGov) November 1, 2024
While far from the most pressing issue, some noted Badenoch’s terrible posture:
Not the best of starts. Kemi Badenoch thinks Boris Johnson was a “great” prime minister and that partygate was “overblown” (can’t believe she’s slouching like this either). #BBCLauraK pic.twitter.com/6yJm9oY9gQ
— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) November 3, 2024
Her posture could be a case of the chair being too big for her; she could also have a severe case of ‘nerd neck‘ from all that hacking:
As Kemi Badenoch is elected as Conservative Party leader, a reminder of the time she boasted about committing the serious criminal offence of hacking and vandalising a Labour MP's website pic.twitter.com/QrElHL0ibj
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) November 2, 2024
Bleak cost of living crisis Britain
The sad truth is that if the Tories could have maintained lethargic growth and low inflation they could have clung to power for five more years. With our billionaire-owned media and a middle class who care only about their house price, a great deal could have been swept under the rug.
Unfortunately for the Tories, the cost of living crisis affected everyone outside the wealthiest 5%, and kicked off a chain of events which made the Tories’ ousting inevitable. A fact they’re still painfully denying.
Featured image via the BBC
