The Conservative party’s current brief and the political mysteries of ‘time’ | Conservative Home

Kemi Badenoch has an enemy she cannot control and it’s potentially working against her.

Time as a concept is defined as ‘the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future’. It is as, we all know, measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years.

Political time has varied speeds and units.

Things happen fast, or action is too slow. Governments have their time, act just in time or run out of time. Opposition has a different pace – ‘time to reflect and rebuild’ and whoever occupies either role these descriptions run simultaneously. A week is a long time in politics and a recent lesson of today is making only minute changes to people’s lives will often leave you coming second, for years.

Badenoch’s allies and indeed most of her colleagues think she still deserves time, and that removing her now, is the wrong time but with politics globally seemingly running at double speed perhaps the one thing she doesn’t have is time.

Nineteen centuries ago Marcus Aurelius, Roman philosopher-emperor, who knew a thing or two about the complexities of power, said:

“Time is a river that flows and carries everything away.”

The world as we knew it is changing very fast. In the West seventy years of rules based order is evaporating. In the East, China, famous for its political patience is now upping it’s pace aggressively. The globalised planet is hurriedly trying to realign and it’s not done yet.

Domestically things are slower. Grinding government gears, both when driven by Tories and now Labour, struggle to keep pace with such change – the machinery to match it is simply not there. Government is too often behind the curve.

Now we’ve had the chosen, filtered responses to what parties’ think the electorate are telling them, the Prime Minister wants to deliver change  “further and faster” and the leader of the opposition is committed to ‘slow and steady’ and desiring patience.

For many members of the Conservative party the messages should be reversed. It is their party’s leadership they want ‘to go further and faster’, and Starmer’s ‘change’ to slow to a stop.

I did once work for someone who claimed the secret to their huge investing success was when the herd said ‘run’ he stayed and ploughed on, and when the herd were comfortably static, he left and looked for pastures new. You can only be right about that in hindsight. Those who did it and got it wrong are forgotten quickly with “told you so” ringing in their ears.

There is merit in holding steady and sticking to your course. Badenoch’s argument about not setting out a manifesto in 2025 tackling the issues of now for an election in four years that would see the winner into 2034 seems completely rational and reasonable.

Time however is neither rational, reasonable or fair, it’s just time. The pace of current politics requires a nimbleness of response to avoid Marcus Aurelius’ warning of being washed away. Frustratingly that very pace of change also acts as a proof of the dangers of rushing too soon to fixed conclusions for the future.

In 2024 the electorate were not remotely listening to the Conservative party.

In these recent local elections they still weren’t. Despite changes in people and direction they seemed not to have noticed changes in the Conservative party or that the  party is ‘under new leadership’. Reform UK, and to a quieter extent the Liberal Democrats, have meanwhile occupied space at scale and pace. Success will spur both not to slacken off.

The Tory leadership team describe their mission right now as winning back public trust, so the public will be tempted to listen when the big policy platform is revealed. However ask how long that process might take and the answers are honest but vague, because nobody knows.

It’s hard to win back trust in opposition, traditionally it’s taken lots of time, units of time Badenoch probably hasn’t got. So acceleration seems inevitable. The step by step logic of the Badenoch plan given the ferocious pace of politics around is a big risk, to both her and the party.

What if step one takes so long that by the time the big reveal comes nobody hung around to hear it, and leaving them them behind? Very behind.

The existing plan seems predicated on the tale of the tortoise and the hare. It relies on Labour, but even more, Reform, running a marathon at sprint speed leaving the Tories trailing – as they are – but one or both blowing up or stopping for a complacent break. Then the Tory tortoise allowing mocking criticism to bounce off it’s shell emerges from behind with bold answers, policy credibility and an electoral chance. Just a chance mind.

There’s equally a chance Labour could be a one term Government but replaced by a Conservative majority? Right now that feels a long way off.

Tick, tock, tick, tock, say a few MPs privately, many ConservativeHome readers, and plenty of Conservative members.

It’s worth pointing out the clock is ticking on a lot of them. The desperate need for an offer to attract younger voters is driven by the cold fact the grim reaper moves at speed too!

There are, however, a few things that could broaden the strategy and here’s three:

First, Badenoch who has been doing plenty of media, needs to carve out even more space for herself. It’s admirable to ‘only say things when you’ve got something to say’ but the commentariat critique is:

“She still doesn’t like media and Farage is such an excellent communicator he’s always going to grab the limelight”

If anyone accepts that pack up and go home. You don’t have to ape what he says to grab your own airtime. Every minute you have the media’s attention – which in opposition needs to be wrestled out of them – you get the limelight off your opponents and back onto you. Rinse and repeat.

Second show some policy leg. Not a manifesto, no fixed policy positions, but a timely indication of direction of travel. If you have one shot at the big reveal, and it is one shot, then there’s nothing to lose by amplifying build-up. Outline when it comes it will be bold, radical and deliverable. Hints will be pored over, but at least the focus is again on you.

Remember the restaurant with red meat? Well criticism of metaphors aside the party and the public might well want reminding how good that can be. I wrote some months ago, a tasting menu for hungry party faithful, and wider public, wouldn’t go amiss.

Third, and perhaps trickiest, Badenoch has upped her game on effective criticism of Labour, but as people keep pointing out to me, Jenrick makes so much of his own running on this. Is it such a bad idea to create a bit more joint working?

Whatever either thinks about that, it seems punchier if you want to ‘unite the right’, to start within. They are on the same team, he’s praised her, he’s in her shadow cabinet – get them both up and out as a double act.

The leadership might reject all three, they might reject others but if the policy work is to continue slow and steady, and meanwhile politics is going at frenetic pace, most quiet voices suggest there’s a year or so on the clock to show real progress.

Tolstoy said that “The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

The danger of political battles is parties can run out of the latter as quick as the electorate can run out of the former.