Kemi Badenoch is the undisputed leader of the Conservative Party, but to walk through the famous black door of Number 10 she faces a raft of challenges. Chief among them is restoring the party's credibility and winning back the trust of voters after years of turmoil.
Facing Burnham and Labour's attack lines
Mrs Badenoch will relish her next opportunity to face Andy Burnham at Prime Minister's Questions. She used these weekly duels to portray Sir Keir Starmer as a flailing leader who was not up to the task of leading the country. Now she will portray Mr Burnham as a Left-winger who is a direct threat to the livelihoods of Britons.
Major dividing lines are opening up between the parties, and the Conservatives today are armed with a message which will strike a chord across the generations. While Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves terrified farming families with their plan to hike inheritance tax on agricultural land, Mrs Badenoch and her team are promising that family homes will not be taxed. As more policies are unveiled, the choice facing the electorate at the next election – whenever it comes – will sharpen.
Unlike so many of her predecessors, she does not live with the constant threat of mutiny in Tory ranks. But there she faces a raft of challenges as she pursues her ambition to become prime minister.
Overcoming Labour's record and Reform UK's rise
Each time the Conservatives address a crisis such as the lack of affordable housing or prison overcrowding, Labour responds that they had 14 years to sort the problem out. Likewise, when they point to the fragile state of the public finances, Labour says the Tories bequeathed them a mess, and reminds voters of the turmoil which followed Liz Truss's mini-Budget. Mrs Badenoch knows that the Tories must restore their credibility and win back trust. This will take a long time.
And while past Tory leaders had to deal with the pressure from Nigel Farage's UKIP, Reform UK is a very different beast. It is backed by mighty donors and – though its support has dipped from when it looked on course to win an outright majority – the Tories desperately need to overtake it in the polls to look like a credible party of government. Reform is building its infrastructure, investing in policy developments and has wildly ambitious plans for mass communications. Mrs Badenoch has ruled out a deal with the party, but winning a majority will be near impossible if the Right-wing vote is split.
Winning back voters and showing her human side
Mrs Badenoch has shifted the party Rightwards with policies to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights and abandoning the net zero zealotry of its recent past, but she also faces the challenges of taking back seats from the Liberal Democrats and coaxing back liberal-minded graduates. She may gamble that her tax policies will persuade middle-class homeowners and pensioners to set aside worries about human rights and climate change, but the Tories will need to run hyper-specialised campaigns to address the priorities of radically different neighbourhoods.
Mrs Badenoch showed real emotion in her conference speech as she described heinous crimes and the deaths of people she admired. As the election nears, voters will pay closer attention to her, and she needs to assure them she shares their values and understands their hopes and fears. She faces the most charismatic prime minister since Boris Johnson, someone who has gone to great lengths to convince Britons he is not a creature of Westminster. Mrs Badenoch should not be afraid of letting the country get to know her as a person.
The conference in Birmingham will not transform the Conservatives' poll ratings, but it is clear their leader believes they have the chance to end Labour rule. If a majority of citizens look to them with hope, she will have the opportunity to lead the greatest democratic comeback in recent times.
