For Keir Starmer, this is a flashing red klaxon. He was elected on a promise of “Change,” but the public is seeing more of the same. The trains are still broken, the NHS is still on its knees, and people feel poorer. Starmer’s forensic, lawyerly style—once an asset against Boris Johnson’s bluster—now looks robotic and evasive against Badenoch’s direct, confrontational approach. She skewers him at PMQs with a clarity that Rishi Sunak could never muster. The Prime Minister’s allies will point out that mid-term polls are notoriously fickle and that the Tories are still a long way from a majority. But politics is about momentum, and right now, Kemi Badenoch has it in spades. The next General Election campaign hasn’t officially started, but the battle for the soul of Britain just got a new, and very formidable, frontline commander.
Advertisement
