🎩 "The Kemi Conundrum: Is the Conservative Party's 'Avenging Angel' About to Be Exorcised?"
The conference season may have ended, but the séance has only just begun. As the Tories packed up their banners in Manchester, one question lingered among the empty champagne flutes: can Kemi Badenoch actually survive as leader?
Tatler's insider dispatch painted a scene somewhere between The Thick of It and The Walking Dead: Badenoch striding onstage in off-white body-con and stilettos — part "avenging angel," part "still alive, just about." Her gag of the week ("I'm an engineer, not an arsonist") raised enough polite chuckles to keep the conference floor from flatlining.
But amid the fizz and fashion, there were bigger bangs than her outfit. The big announcement — abolishing stamp duty — came with the usual Tory caveats ("second homes need not apply"). Then came the amyl-nitrite moment: £47 billion in welfare cuts, met with cheers that suggested the ghost of Thatcher had briefly returned for one last conga.
Still, the real drama is backstage. With Badenoch's one-year leadership anniversary approaching in November, her party's plotting calendar is lighting up like a Christmas tree. That's the first legal moment for MPs to start sending those infamous "letters" to the party chair — the modern equivalent of being handed a note from Thomas Cromwell.
And if history teaches us anything, it's that Conservatives do love a coup… almost as much as they love a cocktail.
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Conference After Hours: The Real Tory Tribes
The Spectator party was the main watering hole (sans the water for once). Michael Gove, now abstaining from booze but not from intrigue, hosted proceedings in a hangar-sized room. Despite their rocky "frenemy" history, Gove and Badenoch are now awkwardly reunited by their shared fear of Reform UK — and by publisher Paul Marshall's Reform flirtations.
Meanwhile, James Cleverly has checked out of the leadership hotel altogether, eyeing a tilt at London mayor instead. He was last seen pulling his own pint before breakfast and claiming, "It's like rugby," which might also explain his policy strategy.
Mel Stride, Kemi's numbers man and shadow chancellor, is steering the economic message and an unexpected social-media hit list ("Ten things you didn't know about Mel Stride" — including that he's written an unpublished novel and once lived on a boat). The Tories love a man with hidden depths, preferably offshore.
Priti Patel sparkled at the GB News bash, mixing pearls with politics before joining Kemi in a late-night rendition of Sweet Caroline. Nothing says fiscal responsibility like a Mojito singalong.
Penny Mordaunt, still swashbuckling her way through myth and memoir, calls herself a "national treasure." She's backing Kemi's tough talk on the ECHR and climate rollbacks — but history reminds us how Portillo's comeback tour ended (with train documentaries).
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Kemi's Pretenders-in-Waiting
Robert Jenrick — accompanied by his formidable wife, Michal Berkner — seems to be warming up in the wings with a spare judges' wig and a few Farage-friendly phrases. If Kemi stumbles, the Jenrick Express will be leaving Platform Brexit shortly.
Riding shotgun is Katie Lam, the hyper-ambitious Kent MP whose CV reads like the Von Trapp family meets Goldman Sachs. Former musical writer, banker, Boris-era adviser and PR exec — she's the prototype for the next-gen Tory: equal parts competence and chaos. Her only PR problem? Being branded "a Dom Cummings creation," which these days is the political equivalent of having "MySpace influencer" on your résumé.
And just when you thought it couldn't get weirder, Chesney Hawkes turned up. The One and Only singer closed the conference with Tory-themed karaoke — including a rewrite of The Killers' "Human" as "Are We Tory?" Sadly, even he didn't dare cover Making Plans for Nigel.
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Verdict: Mirror, Mirror on the Party Wall…
Badenoch's fans see her as the iron-fisted moderniser who can take the fight to Labour and Reform. Her critics think she's already running on borrowed time — a leader dressed for the resurrection but surrounded by resurrectionists.
As one insider put it:
"The party isn't dead. It just hasn't realised it's a ghost yet."
Whether the Kemi era becomes a second coming or a zombie shuffle now depends on how many letters land on that fateful desk in November.
Until then, the Tories will do what they do best: plot, party, and pretend it's all under control.
🗞️ Votes & Quotes — because politics shouldn't just be watched; it should be toasted, mocked, and occasionally exorcised.
