The political tectonic plates under Westminster are groaning and shifting, and for the first time in a long while, the vibrations are coming from the Opposition benches. A new, bombshell opinion poll has put Kemi Badenoch ahead of Sir Keir Starmer in the personal popularity stakes. The numbers show the Conservative leader overtaking the Prime Minister as the country’s preferred choice for Number 10. It’s a seismic moment in the 2026 political calendar and a stark warning to Labour that the honeymoon—if there ever was one—is well and truly over, and the divorce papers might be in the post.
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How has Badenoch managed this? She’s hardly a cuddly, centrist unifier in the mould of a Cameron or even a Sunak. She’s a conviction politician with a capital ‘C’, and her convictions often involve saying things that make the liberal metropolitan elite spill their oat milk lattes. But that’s precisely the point. In a political landscape paralysed by managerial blandness, Badenoch sounds like she actually believes in something. Whether it’s her robust defence of free speech on campuses, her scepticism about the costs of Net Zero, or her refusal to bow to identity politics, she has carved out a space as the authentic voice of the “anti-woke” majority—or at least, a sizable and very noisy minority. More importantly, she’s managed to avoid the bitter infighting that plagued the Tories after the election defeat. She’s kept her party quiet, which in Conservative terms, is a miracle akin to turning water into a decent claret.
