Kemi Badenoch may already be repeating the mistakes of Liz Truss

Kemi Badenoch is assembling her shadow cabinet
Kemi Badenoch is assembling her shadow cabinet

History repeats, first as tragedy, second as farce. To describe Liz Truss’s premiership as a strategy would be too kind; to describe Kemi Badenoch’s two-day-old leadership of the Conservative Party as a farce would be too unfair. Yet even at this early stage, the fourth female Tory leader is in danger of repeating the mistakes of the third.

Both Truss and Badenoch received the support of around a third of the Conservative Parliamentary Party. Unlike Truss, Badenoch came first in the final round of MP voting, but her margin of victory among the members was narrower. Either way, both confronted a crucial challenge when constructing their top teams: how to bind to them MPs who supported other candidates.

This is a much more difficult task for Badenoch because the parliamentary party is so much smaller, and because shadow ministerial offices promise not the Jags and red boxes of government roles, but five years of hard slog against Labour in the Commons. But Truss wasted her advantages, appointing a Cabinet with a large majority of members who had voted for her. Team Rishi Sunak were left out in the cold.

This is the opposite of what Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron had done: appointing a Cabinet mixed of allies and rivals to ensure a mixture of talents and a predisposition to loyalty. If Badenoch is to ensure she stays as Tory leader until the next election, she needs to deploy her patronage similarly, or face being forced out like Truss if the polls turn against her.

Even after only a few appointments have so far been made, Badenoch is already showing a worrying sign of repeating the error of her predecessor-but-one. Her decision to make long-standing allies Rebecca Harris and Nigel Huddleston Chief Whip and Party Chairman respectively are understandable, since she would want two roles essential for party management in the hands of those she trusts.

But the decision to appoint Neil O’Brien to the junior position of shadow education minister has set alarm bells ringing. Having been a former Director of Policy Exchange, served in a variety of ministerial roles, and written a popular policy-orientated Substack since the election, O’Brien was tipped by many for a shadow cabinet role. Instead, he will be the deputy of Laura Trott’s – a close Badenoch ally.

Why O’Brien has not been given a more prominent role, despite his policy nous, is not hard to discern. Having backed Badenoch in 2022, he switched to Robert Jenrick this year. Whilst Badenoch may prize loyalty, this bodes ill for her willingness to reach out across her bruised parliamentary party. Even with the 1922 Committee’s raised threshold for a confidence vote, this leaves her vulnerable.

Already, James Cleverly has declared he will sit the shadow cabinet out, in a move some suspect is designed to ensure he isn’t tainted by Badenoch’s leadership should she stumble and need replacing. She cannot afford for Jenrick to do the same. She must offer her rival a big role: likely shadow foreign secretary, since the two clashed over immigration during the contest.

If she can produce a shadow cabinet that brings the Conservative Party together, Badenoch will have the best chance of beating the average tenure of her eight predecessors since John Major: three and a half years. But if she doesn’t, there is every chance that she doesn’t reach the next election – especially if Nigel Farage starts winning over any Tories who found her pledges on immigration unconvincing.