Have Badenoch’s new ministers got any chance of ‘turning things around’?

As the Conservative shadow cabinet meets for the first time, Sean O’Grady asks whether a cohort assembled from the ruins of a badly defeated party can hope to achieve what its leader has suggested – putting the Tories back in power by the end of the decade

Slightly overshadowed by political developments in the United States, the new Conservative shadow cabinet has been announced and has held its first meeting. The recently elected leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, has tried to make the best of the talent available (and willing to serve) within the denuded parliamentary group.

She has told her colleagues “We can turn this around in one term,” ie that the Tories can be back in power by the end of the decade. She also said: “Our party’s problems will only be solved with a team effort, and I am confident my shadow cabinet ministers will deliver effective opposition as we seek to win back the trust of the public.” So, can the new top Tories triumph?

Is this a united team?

Not quite. There have been a few comparisons made between Badenoch and Margaret Thatcher, and to some extent, Badenoch has applied the same principle as her long-ago predecessor in appointing ministers – “Is he [or she] one of us?” The great majority of her cabinet appointments are drawn from her own loyal supporters, and only six of them publicly supported other candidates.

On the other hand, for two of the most senior appointments, she has tried to balance things up a bit by accommodating colleagues who ran against her – Mel Stride on the more liberal wing as shadow chancellor, and Priti Patel as shadow foreign secretary. Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, is a Badenoch man.

Although Robert Jenrick has accepted a post as shadow justice secretary, few of his backers have been given jobs, the main exceptions being Victoria Atkins (Defra) and Edward Argar (health). There’s only one identifiable Sunakian, Claire Coutinho, who was favoured under the old regime but hasn’t been promoted.

It’s very much a shadow cabinet of Badenochites, with a tilt to her brand of centre-right politics. It seems her friends aren’t shy of briefing for her. One apparently said of Jenrick: “Kemi just doesn’t like Bob. She thinks his whole shtick about her, and whether she had any policies, has done lasting damage with Reform voters.”

Who’s out?

Most notably, two of Badenoch’s rivals have declined jobs, with Tom Tugendhat reportedly turning down the foreign affairs portfolio, and James Cleverly taking time out after a bruising campaign (and perhaps for personal reasons). Other notable absentees include Oliver Dowden, Jeremy Hunt, Andrew Mitchell and Steve Barclay. By convention, Rishi Sunak wasn’t going to be in the team anyway.

Badenoch will also be menaced by the unsated ambition of Boris Johnson, though he is disqualified on a variety of grounds from taking up a frontline role. She’ll also prospectively face mumblings and coded criticisms from the usual suspects, such as Suella Braverman, Nadine Dorries, David (Lord) Frost and Liz Truss. On the other hand, she’ll find a sympathetic figure at The Spectator – new editor Michael Gove, her long-term mentor and sponsor.

Will this be an effective team?

It could turn out to be, but it starts with at least three major drawbacks. The first is that the public aren’t much interested in what the Conservatives have to say, as evidenced by the party’s humiliation on 4 July. Second, many of the new girls and boys are unknown to the public, and are not even household names in their own kitchens. Argar, for example, the obscure MP for Melton, now has the unenviable task of going up against the health secretary, Wes Streeting – a master of policy and presentation with a machine-gun delivery.

Third, they lack experience. Not one of the shadow cabinet in the Commons has spent even a single miserable day in opposition before. The only one who has is Nicholas (Lord) True, formerly leader and now shadow leader of the Lords, who served as private secretary to William Hague when Hague was leader of the opposition, and was director of the opposition whips’ office in the Lords from 1997 to 2010.

Any problems?

Some have “history”. Patel was sacked by Theresa May in 2017 from her post as international development secretary when she was caught freelancing foreign policy on a “holiday” in Israel. One of Patel’s more bizarre ideas was to transfer some of the UK aid budget to the Israel Defense Forces. The downside of Stride’s experience as a Treasury minister is his role in the Treasury’s “loan charge” policy a few years ago, which tried, controversially, to claw back allegedly unpaid tax.

The main problem for Badenoch, though, as with any opposition leader so far away from government, is how to maintain order and exert authority with such little power of patronage. If she fails simultaneously to make headway against Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK – an unusual challenge – she’ll find the whispering against her gathers strength.

In her favour, the rules have been changed so that a vote of no confidence is harder to secure; it now requires 41 MPs (one-third), rather than 15 per cent of the parliamentary party, to write letters to the chair of the 1922 Committee. Badenoch will be well aware that she only got the backing of 42 of the 121 MPs in the final MPs’ ballot.

As she develops policy, there will inevitably be more rows – and the party will continue to be mesmerised, disoriented and divided by the spectre of Nigel Farage.