Serious leaders, left and right, united in their pleas for patience

We’ll all have our views about the individuals now running the UK’s two largest political parties, but no one can deny that they are serious people.

Keir Starmer is something of a throwback to the pre-digital age, maybe further back than that, to the Labour leaders of the 1950s and 1960s. He is uncomfortable playing the modern media game and takes a long-run approach to politics.

Kemi Badenoch, elected as leader of the Conservatives at the weekend, is similarly high-minded. And like Starmer, she is asking the public for patience.

Starmer’s request is that we bear with his government as it institutes some painful policies in an attempt to put the economy and public services back on the right track. A Budget that raised spending by £70 billion, taxes by £40 billion and borrowing by £30 billion is a gamble that may or may not pay off. Starmer’s plea is that we withhold judgement for now – that we wait and see. 

Badenoch has said that she wants to start from first (Conservative) principles before she gets to announcing policy. She hasn’t jumped into the job promising this scheme or that wheeze, which is what we usually get from new opposition leaders. Rather, she intends to carefully rebuild her party after 14 difficult years in government and a devastating defeat in July’s general election.

There are some early signs, though, about the direction she will take. Badenoch has made her name as an “anti-woke” politician, a stance she is unlikely to change. She is plain-speaking, with little time for the prevarications and rhetorical dodges indulged in by so many at Westminster. That doesn’t mean she won’t deploy them when necessary, simply less so (this sometimes gets her into trouble).

And there are signals, too, from her shadow cabinet appointments. Mel Stride as shadow chancellor seems like a straightforward choice – he is a centrist-ish policy and numbers guy, as can be seen from his previous roles as chair of the Treasury select committee, financial secretary to the Treasury, paymaster general and secretary of state for work and pensions. Interestingly, in 2012 he wrote an article questioning whether maternity and paternity rights are too generous. This was one of the areas where Badenoch got into difficulties during the leadership campaign, when she suggested maternity pay is too high.

But if Stride is a relatively uncontroversial selection, there’s more to chew over when it comes to Dame Priti Patel as shadow foreign secretary. As home secretary, Patel was a divisive figure and a strong social conservative, and was responsible for the ill-fated scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. She was also accused of bullying by her civil servants, and was sacked from the cabinet by Theresa May for unauthorised meetings with the Israeli government. One message from her appointment is that Badenoch’s regime will be strongly pro-Israel, sceptical on foreign aid and hardline on Brexit.

The second marmalade-dropper is Robert Jenrick to justice. Jenrick made it to the final two in the Tory leadership race, his campaign was defined by his rapid switch from supporting David Cameron’s centrist policies (he was a Remainer before the Brexit referendum) to a Trump-supporting right-winger. He displays all the zeal of the convert, and is especially hardline on immigration, an issue he placed at the centre of his campaign.

Jenrick wants the UK to quit the European Convention of Human Rights, a policy that divides the Conservative Party. By giving her erstwhile rival a key job, despite his occasionally aggressive comments during the leadership race, Badenoch is signalling that she wants the different wings of her party to unite, and to let bygones be bygones.

In the end, the new Tory leader wasn’t exactly spoiled for choice. The general election saw her party reduced from 344 MPs to just 121, and many previously senior figures stood down. That can be seen in the relatively low-profile of some in the new shadow cabinet: Ed Argar, James Cartlidge and Gareth Bacon are well enough known in the Commons, but hardly yet have widespread name recognition in the country at large.

What matters now is whether a party that has spent the past decade, and the last few months, fighting like rats in a sack can get behind Badenoch. It seems likely Jenrick will fancy another tilt at the top job in due course, as will Patel. Will they be able to resist causing mischief?

The Conservative leader will also have to juggle dealing with the threat posed by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on the right with the need to appeal to mainstream voters who are turned off by anything that looks too obsessive or ideologically right-wing.

And she will have to figure out what, in 2024, the Tories stand for. If they want to cut back the state, where would the axe fall? If they’re opposed to Starmer’s tax and borrowing hikes to fund investment in the public services, where would they find the money that the NHS and the financial strains caused by Britain’s ageing population requires? What is their alternative plan for economic growth?

On all of these issues, the party at least has a cerebral and thoughtful person at the top. British politics once again has a clear left-right divide, and it is up to Badenoch to shape the Conservative agenda in a way that will offer an appealing alternative to Starmer’s big-state Labour. She’s asked for time to do that – let’s see if she gets it.

Chris Deerin, senior adviser, Charlotte Street Partners