John Redwood: Badenoch, and her shadow cabinet, are coming into their own | Conservative Home

Sir John Redwood is a former MP for Wokingham and a former Secretary of State for Wales.

The Government is very good at harming itself. There have been the u-turns on welfare, the pensioner fuel grants, and over an enquiry into the rape gangs.

There have also been the constant giveaways to foreign governments to anger the Brexit half of the country. First, the Prime Minister gave away the Chagos, then large sums of money in addition to the islands were granted to Mauritius.

The EU reset surrendered powers to make our own laws whilst failing to secure anything in return; there were asymmetric “deals” on military matters and migrants where the UK gives and the EU takes. Sir Kier Starmer thinks giving into most foreign demands makes him a statesman.

No wonder the Government struggles in the low twenties in the polls. The Prime Minister is thought weak, and the Attorney General stands accused of two tier justice.

The Chancellor, meanwhile, is written off. Starmer shows her no sympathy in the Commons when she is distressed, and fails to reassure about her position there and then; following new highs for long-term interest rates (she has given us higher interest rates than the one-day Truss peak level, all this year), he later had to rush out a statement that she will be Chancellor well beyond the next election. With polls showing this will be a one-term government, markets remain sceptical about both Rachel Reeves and her future.

With unemployment up, illegal migrants up, inflation up, longer-term interest rates up, taxes up, and with confidence down, growth down, and jobs down, there has been no reason for the public to welcome the change Labour unleashed on them. When people voted for change, they voted for change for the better.

What passes many in the media by is the role of the Opposition in the collapse of government support.

Little of this happens on its own or by chance. It took Kemi Badenoch to lead a strong campaign to get a proper enquiry into the disgrace of the rape gangs from a Labour establishment who did not want too much light shone into the darker recesses of their councils, social care departments, and  children’s homes.

It required the Shadow Cabinet to point to the many indicators of a deteriorating economy, to counter the nonsense that the Chancellor has created economic stability; it was Robert Jenrick who spearheaded the attack on two-tier justice and made a video sensation out of fare dodging and other anti-social crimes.

Andrew Griffiths led a vigorous opposition to the Employment Rights Bill, forcing the Government to delay its introduction and to talk about changing some of its provisions after enacting it; Chris Philp was ever present leading on the failures of Labour to enforce the law and carry out their manifesto promises on police numbers and money; Badenoch and Priti Patel kept the dreadful Chagos giv away in the news; Alex Burghart has been incisive against Rayner.

All of this reflects well on the Leader who assembled the team and who has given each of them their freedom to raise these big issues.

It is true some of other leading members of the Shadow Cabinet have not yet got into their stride and are not insistent enough in exposing Labour’s mistaken actions and failures to act. There is every reason to expect success to be catching, with others wanting to prove they can get the Government to alter course in the national interest as the leaders have already achieved.

Claire Couthino is now back from maternity leave and is one of the best performers; she can have a field day on the contradictions and high costs of Ed Miliband’s disastrous net zero extremism, as high energy using business after business collapses or becomes a state pensioner.

You cannot have a successful industry policy with the world’s dearest energy prices. You cannot have industrial growth if your aim is to shut down our oil, gas, fossil fuel power stations, and petrochemical and oil refining businesses to import instead.

The Conservatives need to be more critical of Labour’s handling of health and education. The Government is busy overturning the excellent Gove reforms of schools and diluting the successful standards agenda.

After a wasted year, Wes Streeting repeats the three main themes of Conservative NHS policy as if they were new. He says he will boost productivity and cut back inherited manpower plans: how? When? Why has productivity continued to fall on his watch? This is not a plan but a vague wish list.

It is true none of this has yet translated into good poll ratings for the Conservatives. The endless nasty rhetoric from Labour, still blaming every fault on the past government, takes its toll.

But increasingly the problems Labour wish to blame on the past are of their own making, or are inherited problems they have made worse instead of solving. The endless blaming of the Conservatives will run out of shelf life and come to annoy more voters who expect government to take responsibility. If something is broken, they need to mend it promptly.

It will take time for the official Opposition to get credit. A few months out the public are still angry with Conservatives for not controlling migration and for Rwanda not working quickly enough. In three years time when so many things will be visibly worse and the Conservatives have a cogent agenda for change, things should look very different.

Maybe passing the one year mark is a dangerous bridge to cross for the government. Entrusted with such a large majority and facing a numerically much weakened opposition, they had every chance in their first year to fix the main things people were concerned about.

Instead they messed up the economy, where the outgoing government had got to two per cent inflation and the fastest growth in the G7 after Covid lockdowns. They have increased illegal migration by cancelling some of the Conservative policies that were beginning to work, and got themselves into a row over two tier justice exposing divisions within society.

The Conservatives were entrusted with the important task of leading the offical opposition in Parliament. It gives the party the right to first response  to government statements and debates. It gives influence over the business of the House and Opposition days to set the topics.

It also brings important duties for every Conservative MP to help provide representation and constructive opposition on every committee and in every government debate. It means Conservatives, through hard work and well-thought-through approaches, can win back trust by showing they have learned from past mistakes in government.

Few if any commentators thought, one year into a government with a huge majority, poll after poll would say Labour cannot possibly win the next election. The Government’s reputation for doing harm is well set and proven across all the key issues. Not a bad result for a new Opposition.

Now the debate is about who and what should replace them. Serious policy work, supplementing daily demonstration of Official Opposition leadership in Parliament can give the Conservatives a route back to office to serve the nation better.