Readers, I ask you to cast your minds back to some three weeks ago. Having just witnessed Burnham and Badenoch exchange blows with one another at PMQs, a Tory MP texted me that our leader was still very much in her “calibration stage.”
She had the right mindset. She had the right ideas, too. And yet her blows weren’t connecting. Routinely, she would land a hit, but the follow-through was entirely non-existent. Burnham would repeatedly leave the weekly clash without even the slightest of nicks.
It appears now, though, that Kemi has sussed out the King of the North. She sees through him, and knows what makes him tick. She understands what tone is needed to get under his skin, and no better was this exemplified than during yesterday’s showing.
The occasion started tamely enough. Badenoch quizzed the PM on his supposed 10-year plan, asking why consultants from BCG were being drafted in to help formulate it. Unsurprisingly, Burnham shrugged the question away. He said that he was “determined to give this country the stability that the Conservatives failed to provide” and promised that the plan will be presented to the House of Commons before the Christmas recess. A stirring defence of the Government’s record, it was not.
Yet despite such a flatline-esque response, it seemed as though Badenoch was about to fumble. She looked ready to slip back into her old ways and Burnham appeared as though he was about to get off scot free. And yet, she remained composed. She took a breath and steadied herself . She made a jibe about the merging of the DVLA and DVSA, which elicited a number of “oohs” and focused back in on Burnham’s plan, asking whether the spending review will “come before next summer?
Burnham, in what one can only label as a moment of sheer idiocy, responded by declaring that the Budget was “the most popular Budget for a number of years.” Christmas had seemingly come early. The Tory benches howled with laughter. Badenoch, never one to turn down such a gift, aptly replied: “It was popular compared to the former Chancellor’s Budget.”
It was here that things started to look up for the Leader of the Opposition. One could feel the mood in the chamber shift just a little, the dial having been turned in her favour.
Now smelling blood in the Chamber, Badenoch shifted gear and went after the Government’s record on Rosebank. “If it is not going to be approved” “why was it in the Budget?” The Prime Minister panicked. He flicked through his folder, but to no avail. He rambled on about “quasi-legal” decisions and what not, but failed to say anything of much meaning. In fact, he concluded his response by posing a question back to Mrs Badenoch – a PMQs tactic which is often defined by being high risk, low reward.
Such a strategy led one MP to text me “Burnham already treating Kemi as PM.” Perhaps a tad premature, but it points to something genuine nonetheless. The Prime Minister was on the ropes. The two squabbled over Rosebank a little more, Badenoch made an ill-timed joke about Russell Brand and then Burnham once again posited a question. “When will she directly address the cost of living crisis in this House?” he asked.
Badenoch’s reply was blunt. “I ask the questions here and I am asking about Rosebank.” One need only scan the faces of the Opposition backbenchers to see a certain level of relief wash over. It led one MP to suggest that, once again, “Kemi smashed an out of his depth Prime Minister all around the House.”
From then on, it was clear she had won the exchange. Burnham tried with what little he had to regain some level of credibility, but to no avail. Again, the two went back and forth on oil-related matters, with Badenoch opting to quiz the PM on North Sea drilling and such.
Burnham’s responses were, as per, fairly mundane, and the clash between the two concluded. For someone who, not one month ago, was still trying to suss the PM out, Badenoch’s performance was noticeably strong. Following the exchange, another MP texts that “she’s already worked him out” “to be derailed by Burnham’s increasingly verbose deflection techniques.”
It’s hard to disagree with such a diagnosis. Because if yesterday’s dealings were anything to go by, it is clear that Badenoch has figured the PM out. For their first few exchanges, it seemed as though she was struggling to find her feet. Facing off against a bloke who actually understands how to give a speech, time and again she would throw a right-hook, only for Burnham to dodge and reply with an uppercut. She’d leave the chamber a little embarrassed. She looked, for quite some time, as though she was struggling.
But now, she seems comfortable in her own position. She can stand at the Despatch Box with a certain level of swagger. She isn’t put off by the heckles of Labour MPs, nor is she left shaken as the Government’s front bench laugh at her. Confident in her jibes, and consistent in her follow-throughs, she has, in many respects, learned how to love being the Leader of the Opposition.