Kemi Badenoch

I suspect that given five more years of Starmer's ineptness and inability to inspire - people may well come to view the situation quite differently in years to come. Labour only got 36% of the vote - and its support is fractured along many lines.

The job of the next Tory leader will be to identify core Conservative principles and articulate them well; but also, very importantly, to interrogate the government.

Even if she does not become the leader of the opposition, I'm sure she'll have a very important role going forward. She cuts through the crap...and gets to the point. We're going to need her to hold Starmer's feet to the fire when he attempts to 'modernise' the GRA next year. I'm glad to see Victoria Atkins still in office too.

Whoever becomes the leader of the Tories (it won't be Kemi) won't be there next year, let alone 2029.

Look how they cycled through leaders 1997-2010.

Besides, who are the Tory voters ? No one under 63 for a start.

And it seems rather than creep back to the centre - where parties win elections - they really are determined to beach themselves on the ever shallower waters of extremists. Who are very loud. But also very few.

With the added piquancy that they still can't work out why. Which doesn't really suggest they are that bright. I would worry if they were allowed anything more complex than crayons at this point.

@Shortshriftandlethal I don't think that poster meant that Badenoch is a single issue politician. I think she meant that some people support her because of her stance on a single issue, ignoring her other views.

I think it is a big leap to suggest someone is" not a decent person", just because they is not of your tribe. I think she's thoroughly decent. She's honest, to the point...you know what you are getting. She doesn't try to massage the message.....but maybe she'd be more popular if she did.

I don't think she is a one issue politician at all. The reason she's had so much attention here is because she is the strongest of all when it comes to pushing back against gender ideology. But I've watched her in debate and in committee on numerous occasions and she does have a firm grasp of fundamentals and can articulate them well, and with clarity. Which is why she's popular with the members.

Whether or not you agree with her proposals is another matter.

Her job would not be prime minister, but to hold the government to account for the next five years. To pick holes in their project and identify its failings.

Just because she spoke up about women’s safe spaces does not mean she is a decent person who would make a good pm.
This is why I would never be a single issue voter.
I always remember watching her give evidence at the covid enquiry and she was laughing about poverty saying how it wasn’t the government’s role to cure it.
Her recent comments on maternity pay show who she really is once again.
Just an entitled right winger with no empathy or understanding for anybody except her rich cronies.

She's more Thatcherite than Margaret Thatcher herself ever was. She is very far to the right.

Her comments regarding maternity pay and about how most civil servants (my DD is one) are so bad they should be in jail have shown her true colours and who she really is.

She would be a terrible choice as leader and I am honestly gobsmacked at the amount of support she seems to get on here.

She's my MP and she's dreadful.

I think she is a really good example of the problem if single issue thinking/voting. Say in some parallel universe, she ended up PM. Would a world with no men in women's spaces but even shittier maternity rights be better for women? She is so not on the side of angels.

I think her fatal error has been trying to make working mothers Woke. Talk about kicking your supporters in the face, and only months after trying to make a Labour government "the worst thing that could ever happen to women"!

She's basically demonstrated why many women couldn't bring themselves to believe the Tories/Reform really care about women's rights. We've just been a handy wedge issue for her, nothing more.

It looks like we are going to be having our Trump vs Kamala election next time around. She is just off the charts batshit.

I'm GC and like many in real life, also fairly left wing. In my view she would be a disaster for women and frankly everyone but the super rich.

Project 2029.

The only woman's rights she gives a shit about are KB's rights. At best, she considers UK women, "useful idiots".

Oh that's odd, I swear I saw her doing really well, in the news this afternoon?

Independent thinks she's still in the lead
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/james-cleverly-robert-jenrick-tory-polling-b2624578.html

Yes OP, I’m sure you, as a Conservative voter, are wondering what went wrong for her.

Her comments on maternity pay were so not a good look