Kemi Badenoch’s manifesto-style book breathes some life and fresh ideas into the still-moribund British Tories.

On the occasion of the British Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, leader Kemi Badenoch published a manifesto booklet entitled "The Right Way", some one hundred pages in length, inspired by "The Right Approach" – the pamphlet published by Margaret Thatcher in 1976, drafted by Keith Joseph, which laid the foundations for her government and her revolution in the United Kingdom. Badenoch, who took the helm of the Tories in 2024 following a crushing defeat in that year’s general election, describes her doctrine not as “Badenochism” but, using a far more effective term, as “Kemistry”; and whilst Thatcherism was largely about economic reforms, today’s proposal aims to be more comprehensive: it concerns society, integration, external threats and the new global order. Badenoch is banking on herself – and some Conservatives are anonymously leaking to the media: we haven’t read her little book yet – because her popularity is growing far faster than that of the Tories, because she has silenced the constant internal challenges to the party leadership, and because all that remains is to rebuild a crumbling house from scratch.

In Birmingham, there is the gloom of an opposition with few seats on the city council and a new Labour mayor, Andy Burnham, who has turned the fortunes of Labour and the government round; but there is also the ironic light-heartedness of a large ‘Birmingham Tapestry’ on display in a conference hall: a reference to the marvellous Bayeux Tapestry, currently on display at the British Museum until July next year, featuring a contemporary reinterpretation of the clash between Labour and the Conservatives, with all the figures from British politics ‘embroidered’ onto it, and, naturally, Badenoch’s ambition for reconstruction and change at its heart.

Of course, there is still everything to be done and everything to be won; the polls show no sign of a major Tory resurgence, and the fact that Brexit may once again become a topic of debate – as Burnham wishes – is not good news for a party that has mishandled it and which risks once again being caught between Labour, reaching out to Brussels, and nationalists such as Nigel Farage, who want to cut it off. But when Badenoch writes and says that we must return to growth-oriented policies because Labour’s subsidy-based approach is short-sighted; when she says that whilst immigration must indeed be curbed, we must invest in integration (“our country is not a dormitory”); when she says that defence is crucial because there are threats that have not been seen (or have been underestimated) for decades, and the only way to drive dictators back is to be ready and strong, Badenoch is not seeking to resurrect old ideas, but to build new ones suited to the present time. And in this vitality lies the ‘Kemistry’, the novelty, with everything still to be won.