Kemi can’t win an election at PMQs – but it’s where she could lose her job

Kemi Badenoch in the Commons
Kemi Badenoch in the Commons

One of Tony Blair’s first acts as prime minister in 1997 was to replace the two 15-minute question time sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a single 30-minute slot on Wednesdays, initially at 3pm but since 2003 at noon.

To some extent this was emblematic of his disdain for parliament which he left immediately after stepping down from No 10 in 2007. But it was also a shrewd move because it avoided being skewered twice a week. And skewered he often was by William Hague, the first Tory Opposition leader to face him. Blair hated PMQs, as they are known, regarding them as “something to be endured”. His opponent was quick on his feet and came armed with witticisms and put-downs that often had the feel of a musical hall act.

Indeed, Alastair Campbell, the Downing Street press secretary, suggested as a retort: “If the Tories want a comedian as a leader, they might as well go for Bernard Manning – though he might not be Right-wing enough.” Boom, boom.

The prime minister’s advisers became so alarmed by the evident success of the Conservative leader that after taking a few pummellings they suggested he consider “a fresh approach so we can get back on top”.

He should regard PMQs as a theatrical performance rather than seeing the “political pantomime as if it were a genuine question and answer session”. The PM replied: “I don’t think we should start panicking about this, or thinking PMQs is ever going to be anything other than something to endure. It is, in my view, the worst forum in which to appear.”

The point of these historic maunderings is to observe that in the great scheme of things PMQs don’t really matter a great deal. Blair may have been bested most weeks but he went on to win another stonking parliamentary majority in 2001 when the Tories, notwithstanding Hague’s dazzling brilliance at the Despatch Box, secured precisely one extra seat in the Commons.

It is something for Kemi Badenoch to bear in mind as she prepares for her debut outing as Opposition leader following her election last Saturday.

Her reputation as a combative debater in the House precedes her and she needs to show her depleted squadron of backbenchers they have a leader able to take the fight to the enemy. While performing well doesn’t win votes among the public, performing badly can sap morale in the parliamentary party. Since she only won the support of one third of her own MPs, Mrs Badenoch needs to avoid being seen as a liability by a party that shows no sentimentality and little loyalty towards its leaders if it finds them wanting, even when they are in office.

She has one advantage over Mr (now Lord) Hague in that the prime minister she faces is no Tony Blair. Sir Keir Starmer’s first four months have been a litany of botched communications, poor judgments, freebie revelations and internal squabbling.

There is plenty of material for Mrs Badenoch to exploit but it does not change the daunting fact that Labour has more than 400 MPs and the Tories 121, an even worse position than in 1997. The volatility of the electorate, not just here but in Europe, and the seeming haplessness of the new government has led to people predicting that it will be a one-term administration, but that would be a complacent and unrealistic attitude for the Tories to adopt.

It is true that the Tories managed to squander an 80-seat majority within the space of five years but the circumstances – a pandemic and almost pathological regicide – are unlikely to be replicated by Labour.

If Mrs Badenoch is to be in a position to win four years from now she will need to do much more than score a few points at PMQs. Her campaign for the leadership was noticeably shorn of promises to the point where some Tories wondered why she was being so reticent. Liz Truss made scores of promises when she secured the leadership and since she was in office she might have been able to implement a few of them had she not been ejected by her own party after just 49 days.

But Mrs Badenoch was right to give no hostages to fortune. To see what can happen, look at Sir Keir having to eat his words about university tuition fees after he promised in 2020 to scrap them in order to get elected party leader, and now increasing them for the first time in eight years.

Mrs Badenoch’s watchword is: “I will never make a promise unless I know how to deliver it.” That goes to the very heart of the modern politician’s dilemma. They promise what they cannot deliver and are then pilloried by the voters for breaking their word.

A classic example facing the current Government is its promise to build 1.5 million homes by the end of this parliament. This cannot happen for one simple reason: there are not enough builders. The UK needs to hire around 266,000 extra construction workers by 2026 just to meet the current construction output.

All the infrastructure promises being made on top of the house-building targets make it impossible to achieve any of this and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise. Saying one thing and doing another is the biggest cause of voter anger, as the Tories discovered in July. The vote was against them rather than for Labour.

Don’t promise what you can’t deliver is a good motto to live by. But it means the Tories need a complete rethink from top to bottom of what they believe the state can and should be doing. The current trajectory of borrowing, taxing and spending is unsustainable and will lead to massive problems in 20 or 30 years’ time, not just here but across the industrialised world. Falling birth rates, an ageing population, a dwindling tax base, the rise of AI taking white-collar jobs – all will present future governments with challenges they cannot even begin to imagine.

Labour is stuck in an old Wilsonian time warp, believing that big government can just pile up the national debt and expand the public sector and all will be well. Mrs Badenoch has said that “it is time for something completely different”, and so it is. As an engineer, rather than yet another pointy-headed special adviser with a PPE degree, she understands the importance of systems and getting them right. Sticking it to Sir Keir at PMQs will be good political theatre but that is all it is. The entire state needs rewiring. Working out how to do it is her principal task.