Everyone agrees: politics isn’t working.
From the outset of her successful campaign to become Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch has not shied away from criticising our current political model.
Her launch speech made clear the position: “the whole system is broken.” A few lines later, “we need to reboot, reset and rewire the way that government works so that it can serve the public.”
In remarks that suggest this theme was more than mere campaign tactic, Badenoch told the Sunday Telegraph after her victory was confirmed that “Labour are going to fail because they are repeating many of our mistakes and are doubling down on this broken system.”
Badenoch’s rival for the top job, Robert Jenrick, also made similar noises during the campaign. Describing the evolution in his views, Jenrick said, “I took the view, over time, that the British political system was not only failing, but was fundamentally broken.”
Now it’s fair to say that in these comments neither Badenoch nor Jenrick were specifically suggesting government failure is the result of how they were elected. But even if we come at the problem from a different angle, at least we can agree on the basic principle: things have to change.
But then, we agreed with Rishi Sunak when he said much the same. As we did with Keir Starmer, too.
Only for both to fall back on old temptations and stick with a voting system that, surprise surprise, has tended to give them all of the power without needing to win a mandate from the majority of voters.
However, we should remain open-minded. Badenoch insists that leadership won’t temper her style or force her to back off difficult decisions for her Party. In this spirit, Kemi, we have a suggestion:
Open letter to Kemi Badenoch MP
