Starmer fends off coup his aides accuse Streeting of being behind, as Badenoch insists his position is still untenable

“Sir Keir Starmer on Monday insisted he was “not prepared to walk away” after he survived the most serious challenge yet to his leadership, even as fresh tensions emerged between the embattled UK prime minister and one of his leading rivals. Starmer’s authority was badly damaged after Anas Sarwar, Labour’s leader in Scotland, called on him to resign less than two years after winning power, saying there had been “too many mistakes”. The prime minister’s allies claimed that Sarwar’s move was co-ordinated with health secretary Wes Streeting, who is seen as a contender for the Labour leadership if and when Starmer leaves office. “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to wonder whether Wes knew about and encouraged him to make a move,” said one MP close to Starmer. Streeting’s team hit back, criticising Starmer’s Downing Street operation for trying to implicate the health secretary even after he had voiced some support for the prime minister. “We did not ask Anas to do this, he did not co-ordinate with Anas on this, Anas is the leader of the Scottish Labour Party, he is his own man, and Wes has the highest respect for him,” said a spokesperson for Streeting.” – FT

• ‘Too many mistakes’ Scottish Labour leader tells Starmer to quit now and blasts ‘it’s not good enough’ – as PM desperately clings on to career – The Sun
• Cabinet bounced into giving PM ‘a stay of execution’: Ministers back Starmer after 24 hours of silence as markets wobble in wake of Scottish Labour chief telling Sir Keir ‘go now’… amid war with Wes – Daily Mail
• Starmer still standing after the coup that never was – The Times
• Cabinet forced to back Starmer to save his skin – Daily Telegraph
• ‘This is my fight’ Starmer vows to fight on & beat rebels in Labour showdown as he pleads with MPs to battle Reform after Mandelson scandal – The Sun
• Keir Starmer tells MPs: I’ve won every fight I’ve been in — as it happened – The Times
• Keir Starmer says he is ‘not prepared to walk away’ after call for resignation – Guardian
• Starmer stumbles on as rivals balk at killer blow – FT

Editorial

• While Sir Keir clings on to his leadership, next to nothing is being done to fix UK’s broken borders or flailing economy – The Sun

Comment

• Starmer should go for the good of the country – Kemi Badenoch, Daily Telegraph
• Blimey, what a Monday! But the nasal knight will live to honk another day – Quentin Letts, Daily Mail
• Neither good nor serious – Ben Sixsmith, The Critic
• Labour’s toxic cult of masculinity has been Starmer’s undoing – Suzanne Moore, Daily Telegraph
• McSweeney’s exit sounds Starmer’s death knell – William Atkinson, CapX

Today

Wes Streeting blamed by Starmer loyalists for ‘coup’ attempt that failed

“A fresh row broke out between Wes Streeting and Downing Street on Monday night after the Health Secretary accused No 10 of briefing against him while he was out defending the Prime Minister. Downing Street accused Streeting of co-ordinating with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar to call for Keir Starmer to quit over the Peter Mandelson scandal, the Health Secretary’s spokesman said. The hostile briefing against him took place while Streeting was doing an interview with Sky News in which he expressed support for the PM, they added. Despite that support, the Health Secretary seemed to be clearing the path for a potential leadership bid as he published his private WhatsApp messages with Peter Mandelson. As dark clouds gathered around the PM last week, Streeting’s name was once again thrown into the mix to replace him, leading to a vicious briefing war with other rivals, who made much of his friendship with the disgraced peer.” – Daily Mail

• Streeting accused of No 10 coup – Daily Telegraph
• I’m not prepared to walk away’: Starmer tells Labour MPs in showdown meeting as he fights for his future – but his woes deepen as Streeting reveals how he moaned about PM’s ‘no growth strategy’ in Mandelson WhatsApps – Daily Mail
• Starmer just one Cabinet resignation from being forced out, insiders say – The i
• Streeting told Mandelson Labour had no growth strategy in private texts – Daily Telegraph
• Wes Streeting’s Mandelson texts: ‘No growth strategy at No 10’ – The Times
• Streeting accused of coup against Starmer as plot to oust him exposed – Express
• Streeting wrote off his re-election chances in WhatsApp exchanges with Mandelson – Guardian
• Keir Starmer to force out cabinet secretary over Mandelson vetting – The Times

Comment

• Wes Streeting is disloyal, untrustworthy – and right on many things – Stephen Pollard, Daily Telegraph
• The Cabinet’s belated – and frankly unconvincing – show of loyalty has brought Starmer a stay of execution only. All it would take is a puff of wind to blow him over now – Jason Groves, Daily Mail
• What could a Starmer government possibly achieve now? – Isabel Hardman, Spectator
• Cabinet delighted to save Sir Keir… now they own him – Tim Stanley, Daily Telegraph

Angela Rayner for leader website went live briefly last month…

“An unfinished website claiming to launch Angela Rayner’s Labour leadership campaign was published temporarily in January, prompting further speculation that the former deputy prime minister could be gearing up for a contest to replace Keir Starmer. The Guardian was alerted to the website, which appeared to be under construction, by a source in the IT industry – before the US Department of Justice’s latest release of documents on Jeffrey Epstein threw the UK government into disarray. It was published, seemingly by accident, on a “staging site”, before being removed from the internet. The domain name angelaforleader.co.uk was registered within minutes of the apparent publishing error, at 9.48am on 27 January, with the same company – Webfusion – as her official parliamentary site. Rayner has denied any links to the website, with her team dismissing it as a “fake” that had neither been commissioned by her, nor with her knowledge, while one ally described it as a “false flag” operation.” – Guardian

• Angela Rayner ‘leadership website’ revealed as she claims it’s ‘nothing to do with her’ and steps back from killing off Starmer – after Scots Labour leader said he must go on day of drama – Daily Mail
• Rayner for leader’ site proves race to succeed Starmer is well under way – Guardian

Comment

• Why Angela Rayner would be the most abysmal PM of my lifetime – Stephen Glover, Daily Mail

Yesterday

Jimmy Lai sentenced to 20 years in jail by China just days after PM asked for his release

“Jimmy Lai will die in prison, his daughter warned, after the Hong Kong newspaper owner was sentenced on Monday to 20 years in prison under the territory’s national security law. Despite Sir Keir Starmer’s personal lobbying of President Xi of China in Beijing last month, Lai, 78, received the longest sentence given so far under the law after being convicted in December of sedition and collusion with foreign powers. Eight other defendants, including journalists at Lai’s former Apple Daily newspaper, were sentenced to terms ranging from six years and three months to ten years, at the end of a trial that has been condemned by western governments and human rights organisations.” – The Times

• Keir Starmer accused of ‘monumental diplomatic failure’ as China jails British citizen Jimmy Lai for 20 years just weeks after Prime Minister raised his plight during talks in Beijing – Daily Mail
• Jimmy Lai: will Hong Kong media tycoon die in jail? – Guardian

Today

Palace will cooperate with police over Andrew’s connections to Epstein

“Buckingham Palace has said it will support police in their investigation into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his links with the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. The King emphasised his “profound concern” about his brother’s alleged conduct and said the Palace would provide help to police if it was requested. Thames Valley Police has expanded its inquiry into Andrew, who was already under investigation over allegations that he was introduced to a second victim of Epstein — someone other than Virginia Giuffre — at Royal Lodge in 2010. Andrew denies wrongdoing. The force confirmed that it would also assess allegations that Andrew leaked confidential information as a trade envoy.” – The Times

• King Charles says he will help UK police investigate brother’s links to Jeffrey Epstein – FT
• King Charles expresses his ‘profound concern’ at allegations of Andrew’s conduct after Epstein file release, as Buckingham Palace says it ‘stands ready to support’ the police – Daily Mail
• King Charles ‘ready to support’ police over claims about Andrew – Guardian
• King Charles’s U-turn in response to Andrew scandal proves one important thing – Express
• King ‘stands ready’ to support police probe into Andrew amid claims ‘he leaked confidential docs to paedo pal Epstein’ – The Sun

Reform-led Worcestershire set to issue England’s largest council tax rise

“Reform-led Worcestershire county council is likely to issue England’s largest council tax rise this April after it was given special permission by the government to increase it by up to 9%. Worcestershire is one of a handful of authorities whose requests to be allowed to increase local rates above the standard 5% cap from April have been accepted by ministers. Its cap-busting tax hike will be embarrassing to Reform UK nationally, which has made low council tax a political priority; while it has already led to one local Reform councillor quitting the party in protest. Ministers have also announced the government will clear about £5bn of historical debts accumulated by English councils who have overspent on special educational needs and disability (Send) services in recent years.” – Guardian

• Eric Pickles: ‘Cancelling local elections is unconstitutional’ – Daily Telegraph

Yesterday

For successful economic reform, the sums need to add up and Reform’s economics don’t – Mel Stride

News in Brief

• Our armed forces are hollow – and our enemies know it – Nick Carter, Spectator
• Who has the courage to fix Britain’s debt crisis? – Anne Strickland, CapX
• The conservative case for Keir Starmer – Mary Harrington, Unherd
• Call for the King – Nicholas Boys Smith, The Critic

Credit: Fergus Burnett

The chemical industry plays a vital role in all our lives. Chemicals and their derivatives are used in more than 90 per cent of manufactured products and materials – everything from construction and automotive products to everyday items like cleaning products and medical devices.

But with the advent of AI and new technologies, innovation is crucial to support the success of the industry.

With that in mind, world-leading chemical company BASF and Imperial College London are working in partnership to share their expertise and develop innovative solutions to real-world challenges. These include meeting sustainability commitments by developing sustainable products and technologies, improving resilience to supply chain shocks caused by geo-political events, and potentially being ready to manufacture pandemic pharmaceuticals at speed.

Our partnership with BASF is unusually close, interactive and genuine

Advertisement

Since 2019, the partners have been pioneering ways to produce chemicals with less energy and fewer materials, implement continuous production techniques at smaller scales, and use AI to optimise manufacturing, thereby ensuring that the industry continues to be as competitive as possible. Innovations like these could improve the performance of BASF’s production sites and support economic growth across the UK.

Working together, the partners are creating advanced technology and know-how to support the green transformation of the chemical industry by accelerating a shift to non-fossil feedstocks and less energy-intensive methods.

At the same time, they are nurturing a new generation of industrial chemists able to boost the industry’s success, resilience and sustainability.

“We are always looking to work with the best and brightest students and the top people in their fields,” says Darren Budd, Managing Director of BASF plc.

“We have around 10,000 researchers globally, and 40 or 50 years ago maybe we could do it all in-house. But research requires a multi-disciplinary approach today and we can’t do everything ourselves. We need to find the best partners – partners who fit with our ethos, allow us to progress our research and bring products to market much faster.

“Imperial has like-minded individuals with whom we can work, collaborate and share best practice. Working with them allows us to pick up new techniques and new ideas to support the way in which the world is changing, whether that’s the labs of the future in terms of digitalisation or getting the best students and training them in new techniques and new technologies.”

“Our partnership with BASF is unusually close, interactive and genuine,” agrees Dr Philip Miller, Associate Professor in Applied Synthesis at Imperial’s Department of Chemistry.

“Having a steer and direction from industry as to what some of the challenges are is really important to us. We get to work hand-in-hand with an industrial partner, so from the ground up we co-create projects together. It means that we can take the fundamental research that we do in our labs and apply it to real-world problems.

“Having early-stage input from industrial chemists, engineers or other scientists within companies is important. When you have support from industries like BASF, it puts the rocket boosters on what you can do over the short and medium term – and hopefully sustain that investment, research and translation into the longer term.”

Advancing the chemical industry, a report on the Imperial-BASF partnership published last autumn (2025), showed how the partners are translating their research findings into technologies that are ready for adoption and roll-out. Turning a lab-scale reaction into a commercial manufacturing process can take anything up to 12 years, but the partners believe that their respective expertise can help bring projects to market more quickly.

To date, the partnership has supported 35 PhD students, many of whom are working on improving the economic and environmental performance of the chemical industry – for instance, by improving the yield and selectivity of chemical reactions and by using digital techniques to reduce the time-to-market for new continuous manufacturing processes. Their research has led to numerous papers in leading academic journals, patents and new technologies.

As the partnership evolves, the partners are increasing their focus on bringing new techniques and technologies to industrial adoption.

Routes include their direct transfer to BASF, joint development with consortium partners, and the launch of start-up companies to commercialise their joint research. The formation of SOLVE Chemistry, for instance, is the first time BASF has jointly launched a spin-out with a university. SOLVE Chemistry is now working independently to provide the whole industry with access to its AI-based solutions to find the best way to manufacture chemicals more rapidly.

BASF and Imperial believe that their partnership is a model for the way industry and academia can work together and benefit from each other.

“The pragmatic, impact-driven mindset is what you find at Imperial,” says Dr Christian Holtze, Open Innovation Manager at BASF and BASF’s lead in the partnership. “Imperial is very advanced in how they’re deploying digital science into every aspect of research. They are very strong in areas such as scientific modelling and optimisation – and the way the students are educated is always integrating a digital component. This is fairly unique when compared to research and education at other universities.”

Meanwhile, Professor Mary Ryan, Vice-Provost (Research and Enterprise) at Imperial, sees the partnership as one of the university’s most significant strategic partnerships. “Using Imperial’s advanced expertise in chemicals and digital technologies, the technical advances we now have in the pipeline with BASF are both highly realistic and deliverable and potentially transformational, opening up opportunities for dramatic increases in efficiency and even new value chains,” she says.

Today’s chemists are a world away from the days when they worked at benches cluttered with beakers, burners and rising smoke; they now work in highly controlled environments that blend AI, advanced instrumentation to generate high-quality data and data-driven design.

“If you have sufficient data, you can feed that into a machine learning algorithm that enables decisions to be taken out of humans’ hands and direct the temperature, pressure or flow rate to maximise yield or minimise factors such as cost,” says Imperial’s Dr Miller.  

Some of the partnership’s other projects include the introduction of flow chemistry, a form of chemical production that allows the fine control of parameters such as temperature, flow rate and real-time monitoring via sensors. Imperial and BASF are also combining new computational approaches with experimental data to improve crystalline products and make production processes more scalable. A third project is looking at a new technique that uses light instead of heat to set off the chemical reactions needed to produce products such as crop protection chemicals.

BASF and Imperial are confident that with the necessary investment, the innovations under development have the potential to create new economic opportunities in the UK, including new manufacturing facilities and high-skilled employment. To date, their work has been supported by the government through the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and other organisations in the Innovative Continuous Manufacturing for Industrial Chemicals programme, a £17.8 million research scheme in continuous chemical production.

Economic challenges in the chemical sector and in the European societies mean we need support to secure the continuity that is required to deploy our transformative innovations

The partnership’s current priority is to intensify the focus on translation, thereby turning technology innovation into commercially viable businesses – with support from senior stakeholders at BASF, Imperial and UK public funding bodies.

The chemical industry is one of the UK’s foundation industries, producing the core materials on which much of the manufacturing economy depends. As Darren Budd of BASF puts it, it is “the building block of everything”, underscoring its vital role in the UK economy.

It is therefore essential for universities like Imperial to attract the best students from around the world so they can work on new technologies that can then be deployed at scale. The industry also needs the government to enable the regulatory environment and to offer financial support and backing to drive the chemical industry forward.

“But we are at a tipping point,” writes BASF’s Dr Christian Holtze in the partnership’s Advancing the chemical industry report.

“Economic challenges in the chemical sector and in the European societies mean we need support to secure the continuity that is required to deploy our transformative innovations and we need to work hard on removing hurdles to technology translation. This will take a concerted effort by the key stakeholders in our partnership – BASF, Imperial and the public funding institutions.”

Read the full report here: Advancing the chemical industry: A report on the Imperial College London – BASF partnership

Cllr Steve Adams is the Leader of the Conservative Group on Camden Council.

The greatest challenge for a minority party within a hugely one-sided council will always be that, while opposition to unpopular policy and decisions is easy to garner, what is much harder is to convert that opposition into effective political change.

For the last two years in Camden, the Conservative Group has concentrated solely on local issues, their mismanagement by the Labour-led council administration with the collusion of the official opposition by the Lib Dems. The two parties spend more time at council meetings in posturing on national matters than on pressing local problems.

We have made sure that we have not entertained their game of political ping pong.

Camden has a particularly politically aware population and is literally on the edge of the Westminster bubble. With the Prime Minister as a local MP and much of the Labour hierarchy resident nearby, the most effective and credible course has been for us to aim at reclaiming the high ground of competence.

After each Full Council meeting, we have published a report on our position, which goes out to almost 7,000 members and others. The intention of this initiative is to make use of the work we put into the preparation for meetings and prevent that disappearing like yesterday’s papers into the budgie cage. This continued communication with our supporters is popular and respectful of their belief in us. We are also confident that at the ballot box this will reap benefits.

Another Camden challenge is the burning question

“How can the democratic voice of opposition wards within a larger Council be delivered?”  

When the few primarily Conservative wards clamour against the imposed diktat of the council and 85 per cent local opposition to LTNs is voiced, how can their opinions be considered fairly? This is not a PR quiz, but rather a fundamental question on the essence of representation.

The Cabinet system of local government has delivered Camden a hugely whipped council where even gentle questioning by majority members is effectively stymied. It is not popular with voters and provides us with an opening upon which to benefit. We are making this flaw in local democracy known to the electorate and will increase this message as May 7th draws near.

Kemi Badenoch has accepted many times that in the years leading up to the last election, our party lost the trust of the electorate including our own supporters, and she has committed to rebuilding that vital missing link between the country and the Conservatives. This shows her distinct move away from the bluster and fumble that preceded her.

I have always considered local politics to be just that; local and issue based. However, I appreciate that they reflect on national allegiance and visa versa. In view of that evident fact, I have communicated to all our local council candidates and activists that it is their duty to leave everyone they meet with or write to, with the impression that Conservatives are capable, competent, responsible and committed. By doing this, even in small ways we will rid ourselves of the mistrust that has soured our brand and will eventually swing the tide of public opinion and return the party to the role it should have, the serious duty of government.

We are in the game of marginal gains in both senses of the phrase.

Our local aim is that of redressing the deficit in the balance of power by delivering more, highly capable and effective Tory councillors to the seats in Camden Town Hall and by doing so return to the borough, the principles of decent Conservative values.

Tomas Roberto is UK Head of Public Affairs and Advocacy at The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation

Jimmy Lai’s 20-year prison sentence is not just a bogus legal judgment; it is a geopolitical message. Lai, the 78-year-old founder of the now-shuttered Apple Daily and a British citizen, has been punished to demonstrate that Beijing can jail a Briton, dismantle Hong Kong’s freedoms, and suffer no meaningful consequences. That message did not emerge in a vacuum. It was reinforced, if not invited, by our own government’s weakness, most notably the Prime Minister’s supine visit to Beijing, which signalled accommodation when confrontation was required.

Lai’s “crime” was insisting that Hong Kong’s people deserved the rights promised to them under the Sino-British Joint Declaration – rights now systematically dismantled. His sentence is not merely intended to silence him; it is designed to terrorise others into submission.

The government has condemned the verdict, as it should. But condemnation has become a substitute for action. Statements of “deep concern” and diplomatic protests ring hollow when they carry no consequences. If British citizenship is to mean anything, it must extend beyond rhetorical sympathy or raising cases “respectfully” in private. The Foreign Secretary has said she will now “rapidly engage further” on Lai’s case. The obvious question is: why was the government not already doing so?

Beijing did not hand down this sentence despite British diplomacy; it did so because of it.

The Prime Minister’s visit to Beijing, framed as “re-engagement” and “stability,” was read exactly as intended. Britain wants smooth relations more than accountability. Human rights were raised politely, behind closed doors, while trade, investment, and “dialogue” dominated the optics. Jimmy Lai’s name, if mentioned at all, was clearly not treated as a red line.

Authoritarian regimes are adept at interpreting weakness. Beijing saw a Britain eager to normalise relations, anxious to appear pragmatic, and unwilling to risk economic discomfort. The result was predictable. With diplomatic costs lowered, the Chinese state proceeded with maximum punishment. Lai’s sentence is, in part, the bill for Britain’s deference.

If Britain wishes to reverse course and retain any credibility, it must now act with force. Indeed, engagement must become conditional, not automatic.

First, the U.K. should impose immediate and sweeping Magnitsky sanctions on all officials involved in Lai’s prosecution, including judges, prosecutors, and senior Hong Kong and mainland officials. London’s financial system remains one of Britain’s most powerful tools; those who dismantle freedom should be barred from enjoying its protections.

Second, economic consequences must follow. Britain should suspend preferential financial treatment for Hong Kong, close Hong Kong’s Economic and Trade Office in London, and block further state-linked Chinese investment in strategic sectors. Access to British markets cannot remain unconditional while a British citizen is imprisoned on trumped-up charges.

Third, Britain must abandon the fantasy of “quiet diplomacy” and lead a coordinated international response. This means joint sanctions with the United States, EU, Canada, Australia, and Japan, alongside a concerted effort to isolate Hong Kong officials in international institutions, whilst also excluding President Xi Jinping from the G20 summit in the U.K in 2027. China responds to pressure when it is collective and costly. Engagement must become conditional, not automatic.

The sentencing of Jimmy Lai marks a decisive turning point.

It should end the illusion that the UK can compartmentalise the destruction of Hong Kong while pursuing “constructive” relations with China. Beijing has made clear that it views British protests as cost-free and British citizens as expendable.

Yet amid the geopolitics, the human cruelty of this sentence must not be forgotten. Jimmy Lai is not an abstraction. He is a father and a grandfather. His family has watched him age in prison, endure prolonged solitary confinement, be denied basic medical care to extent his finger nails are falling off, and face the real prospect of dying behind bars for refusing to renounce his beliefs.

Britain must find its spine again and carry out clear, punitive, and sustained action. Failure to do so forfeits its moral authority to speak about the rule of law and invites further contempt from authoritarian states and tinpot dictators the world over that have already concluded Britain can be ignored without consequence.

Jimmy Lai’s freedom will require resolve, not ritual outrage and a Britain willing to defend its values with more than meek words and carefully calibrated statements.

Peter Franklin is an Associate Editor of UnHerd.

No one has benefitted more from the release of the Epstein Files than Kemi Badenoch.

Before the Mandelson scandal blew-up again, the political narrative was heading in the wrong direction for her. It wasn’t just the disruptive effect of the defections; it was also the botched response. Those uncalled for remarks about Suella Braverman’s mental health were quickly withdrawn and explained away as an isolated lapse of judgement. However, the mocking tone of Badenoch’s “drama queens” speech on the 28th of January spoke to a deeper problem: the apparent belief that we can convince the country we are the “party of serious people” by means of an unserious speech.

The Gorton and Denton by-election presented Badenoch with another impediment. Our vote in the constituency is already low and likely to be squeezed by Reform. So, again, a further drain on the momentum that she’d accumulated last year.

There’s more bad news to come with the May elections for the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Senedd and various councils. These are seats last contested four or five years ago and the results will reflect everything that Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak did to crash the Conservative Party when they were in charge. Unfortunately for Badenoch, she’ll be the one sweeping up the wreckage.

It’ll probably be worse for Labour.

If Starmer hasn’t already gone by that point, then coming third in Scotland and losing in Wales for the first time in a hundred years could be the last straw. And yet the choice of a new Labour leader — and, possibly, an acting prime minister, will extend the period in which the Conservative Party struggles for traction.

Or rather that would have been the case if the Epstein files hadn’t recontextualised the entire narrative.

Far from being sidelined, Badenoch has been handed a starring role. And last week, she played it perfectly.

Rather than using PMQs to grandstand, she got the Prime Minister to make a crucial matter-of-fact admission in front of his stony-faced colleagues. And instead of pushing for a vote of no confidence, which would have united the Labour Party, the use of the humble address procedure gave the whole House the space to extract maximum concessions from the government.

So if Keir Starmer does end up following Morgan McSweeney out the door, it won’t be the winning party in Gorton and Denton that gets the credit, nor the forthcoming triumphs for the SNP in Scotland and Plaid Cymru in Wales, nor Starmer’s enemies within the Labour Party. Rather, the clip that’s going to be played over-and-over again is Badenoch’s stiletto of a question: “Can the Prime Minister tell us: did the official security vetting that he received mention Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein?” To which Starmer could only answer: “yes, it did.”

The significance of this moment wasn’t just the admission itself, but that it also focused all eyes on two areas of Conservative strength:

The first is the Conservative Party’s biggest advantage over Reform UK: our status as the Official Opposition. While Conservative shadow ministers face their Labour counterparts over the dispatch box, the eight Reform MPs are stuck at the back with the Corbynites for company. No wonder Nigel Farage prefers to address the nation from the studios of GB News.

The second strength overlaps with the first: Kemi Badenoch’s emergence as the star performer of this parliament. Comparisons are being made to William Hague’s legendary takedowns of Tony Blair in his pomp — but there’s a key difference. Like the jester in the court of a medieval monarch, Hague’s wit served as a safety valve at a time when Blair was otherwise conquering all before him. But Badenoch’s barbs are hitting home and drawing blood. Starmer (or it may be Rachel Reeves or some other minister) emerge diminished from every encounter.

If voters are ready to give the Conservative leader a hearing it is because no one else is better able to articulate the country’s contempt for this disgrace of a government.

This being our most powerful weapon, it makes perfect sense to deploy it at every opportunity. But in the process, we need to be aware that the Conservative Party is fast becoming the Kemi Show.

Of course, we’ve always expected our leaders to take a leading role — it’s right there in the job title. And yet, looking back, the limelight has usually been shared. In Hague’s case, Michael Portillo, Francis Maude and Ann Widdecombe also had starring roles. By the time we clawed our way back into power, the leadership was more of a double act — David Cameron and George Osborne. When Theresa May became Prime Minister, she had no choice but to concede a large slice of power to the leading Brexiteers — Boris Johnson and David Davis. Later, when it all went wrong, she summoned Michael Gove back from exile.

If any of our recent leaders could have hogged all the attention it was Boris Johnson, especially after the triumph of 2019. But even he felt the need to build up a major role for Rishi Sunak — and, subsequently, for Liz Truss too as a counterweight. Truss’s brief time as PM was also something of a partnership — with Kwasi Kwarteng and latterly Jeremy Hunt. When Sunak replaced Truss, he did not share the limelight — but only because there wasn’t any, just a lectern in the rain.

So am I suggesting that Badenoch is a rampant egotist, unwilling to allow other Conservatives their moment in the sun? No, there’s scant evidence of that — in fact she peppers her speeches with shout-outs to colleagues. Nor am I saying that the singular focus on our leader is the result of idleness on the part of shadow ministers. It’s just the attention naturally comes to her. She’s telegenic of course, but much more importantly she’s mastered the art of speaking normally despite the presence of a crowd. I’m afraid that too many of her colleagues still sound like Tory boys or PR persons.

Another reason for the Kemi-alone dynamic is that her backroom advisors are just about invisible. She has no equivalent to a Morgan McSweeney or a Dominic Cummings. Her first chief-of-staff, Lee Rowley, came and went without fanfare. And the  current incumbent, Henry Newman, has a lower profile now than when he was serving in a more junior position under Boris Johnson. That’s not a criticism, by the way. Quite the opposite, in fact — backrooms should not be stages.

The final reason why it’s all about Kemi is that she’s all out of rivals. Of the potential alternative leaders, Robert Jenrick has quit for another party; James Cleverley, having accepted a shadow cabinet role is quietly getting on with that; and Tom Tugendhat appears to be fully focused on geopolitical issues. As for Boris Johnson, he’s failed to contend with his own record in office — and thus won’t be welcome back any time soon.

It’s always worth keeping an eye on future prospects like Katie Lam and Rebecca Paul — as long as one bears in mind just how early in the day it is for them. As for any challenge from the Left of the party — such as the recently launched Prosper UK movement — I’m afraid it’s rather too late. That much is made clear by the group’s list of seventy supporters — which is dominated by former ministers, former MPs and former mayors. If the group doesn’t advance bold new ideas and platform fresh thinkers it’ll be more a case of Remember Us? than Prosper UK.

So, does it matter if the Conservative Party does become the Kemi Show? Well, it’s preferable to be a party of many shining stars, but better one than none. What’s more, in an era of multi-party politics and limited attention spans, it’s an idea to give voters a face and a personality to focus on. After all, it works for Reform, it seems to be working for the Greens and even Ed Davey’s nonsense provides the Lib Dems with a degree of definition.

So unless anyone has any other ideas, Conservatives had better hope that the Kemi Show runs and runs.