Sacking Mel Stride and Priti Patel signals Badenoch is building a serious government-in-waiting
Daily Telegraph 31/08/26
If you were leader of the Opposition, would you rather have: a) shadow ministers that the public had never heard of, or b) shadow ministers they had heard of and disliked? This week, as rumours of an imminent reshuffle swirled, those appeared to be Kemi Badenoch’s only two options.
Dame Priti Patel, for instance, suffers – rather unfairly – from a lingering association with the Boriswave, at least in the Tory assessment. At the other end of the spectrum, most voters would be unable to tell you whether Mel Stride was a man or a woman.
Well, on Monday both were sacked (though Patel was handed a new “international role”). With Reform bleeding from self-inflicted wounds, this tells us something about Badenoch’s ambition for the party, not to mention her emerging strategy and determination to succeed.
Both Stride and Patel were appointed in the aftermath of the disastrous general election of 2024, when the need for Tory unity was urgent. Both had stood against Badenoch in the leadership contest, the former from the centre ground of British politics and the latter from the Right.
Making Stride shadow chancellor and Patel shadow foreign secretary blunted those tribal antagonisms, while Robert Jenrick, defeated by Badenoch in the final round, was appointed shadow justice secretary (which turned out well, didn’t it).
At the time, the message was clear: let’s pull together. Today, however, with Reform being punished in the polls amid the Burnham bounce and Nigel Farage’s slow transformation from god-king to liability, Badenoch has delivered a different, more bullish message: let’s win.
In May, the Conservative leader wrote a column for The Telegraph appealing for new blood, particularly from those who assumed that a political career was too much of a gamble. “We will allow you to keep your life,” she said.
“We will reverse the culture that has turned legislators into social workers who are unable to stop the country going bankrupt.” Spicy words.
Tory candidate selection, she added, would focus on the five C’s: cleverness, charisma, communication skills, conviction and conservatism. Oh, and believers in net zero – or those who were squeamish about leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), scrapping stamp duty, cutting business rates and purging needless, “virtue-signalling” regulation – need not apply.
“I will not allow people who do not share our beliefs to use the Conservative Party as a vehicle to further their personal ambitions,” she wrote. She then barred Grant Shapps, the former cabinet minister and party chairman, from returning, though he was with her on net zero and the ECHR (make of that what you will).
Farewell, then, ghosts of Tory past! Apparently, that includes you, Mel Stride. And greetings to Andrew Griffith, the former Sky executive and chairman of Just Eat who has been made Badenoch’s new shadow chancellor.
Griffith may not have public name recognition, but he has something that Labour lacks in spades: private-sector experience. Let’s look forward to a far more aggressive economic offer from the Tories. Did somebody say just grow?
Then there’s the likeable Tom Tugendhat, who replaces Patel as shadow foreign secretary. The former Army officer and Arabic speaker, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is hawkish on Iran and China and – as former security minister – an expert on counter-terrorism.
For all his credentials, Tugendhat’s appointment demonstrates that Badenoch has no interest in singing to Reform’s tune. Though robust on immigration and the need to leave the ECHR, he was a Remainer and is generally regarded as being a One Nation Tory, a far cry from the populist Right. Clearly, Badenoch is interested in competence.
Completing the trio of eye-catching appointments was Claire Coutinho, 41, whose effective Commons performances have marked her out as a rising star of the party. She has moved from energy to business (though she is poised to go on maternity leave).
A former investment banker at Merrill Lynch, who has also worked at accountancy firm KPMG and the Treasury, Coutinho also packs economic clout.
This week, Ruth Davidson, the former Scottish Conservative leader, advised Badenoch to “stick to the economics” rather than chasing Reform’s tail and getting bogged down in the culture wars on the loonier swamplands of the Right.
Badenoch appears to agree. Her new-look shadow cabinet tells us that she has no intention of trying to stop Reform by playing the insurgent party at its own game. Rather, she intends to build a credible governing alternative around shadow ministers that are experienced and competent. Which happens to be precisely what both Reform and Labour lack.
Comments
Post a Comment