This time last week the Labour party’s digi-Pravda team were churning out social media posts deriding Kemi Badenoch a day after she was elected leader of the Conservative party. The subsequent comments from supporters were to the tune, “she’s doomed”.
Good. Let them.
During the Budget, the Chancellor and Prime Minister laughed derisively to each other, as Rishi Sunak, leader of the Conservatives at the time of their biggest defeat was raining blows on them.
Good. Let them.
Defending a splurge of Labour freebies, jobs for mates, and use of private jets, Emily Thornberry (architect in chief of industrial scale attempts to phish for complaints about Conservative freebies, hospitality and use of private jets) merely rolled her eyes in dismissal to show how childish she thought accusations of hypocrisy were.
Good. Let her.
Conservatives should welcome it all, because it is to allow your opponents to fall into a classic trap: underestimating your opposition.
Being underestimated is a huge opportunity in politics. If Labour are indulging in the soft bigotry of low expectation when it comes to the Tories then that’s all well, and good. We’ve just seen how huge an electoral upset can occur when a politician and an electorate is underestimated.
The Democrats in America thought people couldn’t and wouldn’t vote for a man they saw as a dangerous joke. By focussing on what they thought the electorate should think, not on what they were actually thinking, they handed Trump a remarkable victory – and, may have handed Labour something of a transatlantic headache.
All that social media derision they piled on when it was so easy, was because they underestimated his chances the first time.
Over her Kemi Badenoch called her leadership campaign “Renewal 2030”. Even if you were one of those who wanted someone else to be leader, it didn’t scream over-arching ego. She’s argued for a period of party-wide soul searching to rediscover what Conservatives feel is the essence of being a Conservative. Part of that process is by definition a period of self assessment, not the assessments of those who are not Conservatives.
If the Presidential election in America should teach Kemi anything it is this; focus on the issues that really matter to people. That’s a process made easy because it turns out the basics are the same in most polities today; security, the economy (and how well-off people feel within it) and how you manage immigration.
Helpfully it tuns out in those areas, Labour has played fast and loose with the truth and not convincingly demonstrated yet it can deliver on any of them. The Budget-for-growth is not projected to build much growth, whilst taxing people they said they wouldn’t tax. Their ‘smash the gangs’ idea is a poor rehash of half the work done before and the other half has been performatively abandoned, leaving them without a deterrent. On security they seem hazy on any commitments as to when they’d raise defence spending.
Not having the right answers in these areas is what lost the Democrats the White House, the Senate, and probably the House of Representatives. It seems the President Elect and his party may have learned a lesson in four years: Don’t get mad, get even.
The UK is not the USA. There is no need to ape Donald Trump himself to learn some valuable lessons from his recent achievement – a thoroughly convincing win, after (even though he’ll never admit it) a convincing defeat four years ago.
So what is worth extrapolating here in the UK?
The Conservative party has had four months of learning why it was rejected so emphatically by the British electorate. It has begun the process of trying to build back into contention. There’s no guarantees it will, and plenty of concerns it could sabotage its own chances, but it is learning lessons and taking its time.
The Labour party has had four months of missteps, learning the hard way how hard it is to do Government well. It was accepted by the electorate, but not loved. It has begun the process of doing things it hadn’t suggested it would do and based on questionable logic. There’s not enough concern, within its ranks, that it could be sabotaging its own chances and doesn’t yet show signs of learning any lessons.
Starmer does have a mandate but Badenoch now has a mission. It’s what she told CCHQ staff a few days ago – to win in four years. With a big majority, it’s probable Labour just feels it can confidently talk about its own decade of “renewal” thinking it’s inconceivable the Tories could get back in in 2028/9, given the hammering they took this summer.
And there, if that is how they are thinking, is the opportunity.
A former Cabinet minister of yesteryear once confided in me that they had felt underestimated for most of their political career. I asked if that had ever made them feel like walking away:
“God no. It was perfect. They took their eyes off me, because they thought I wasn’t up to it. It annoyed me but I re-doubled my efforts quietly, and kept doing whatever job I was given, as best I could. The worst offenders never even made it to Cabinet, and I did. I didn’t revel in their surprise that I did, I just felt vindicated by how I’d handled my own getting there.”
It’s just one side of a personal story. I don’t know if their colleagues really did underestimate this individual, but it lays out, at least, the risk of underestimating people, and the opportunity if one is underestimated.
If Kemi and the party are viewed by others as somehow doomed to fail, then the Conservatives have advantages that flow from that.
Space and time, without tribal scrutiny, to plan, to test, and work out the path they want to take. Motivation to, at a time of their choosing, reveal the mistake others may have made. Opportunity to ask themselves “are they right, are we making mistakes?” and if necessary, adjust. They’ll be able to correct them on their own terms if failure is what everyone else expects.
If other parties want to keep swimming in the warm soothing waters of the Conservative summer defeat, let them. Meanwhile the Conservatives should get on with the icy bath of cold realisation of where they’d got to, and continue, with determination, the process of working out which way to go that’s best for them.
Don’t be provoked be confidently underestimated, then enjoy the moment when your opponent realises far too late.
