Foolish Voters | Robert Hutton

OhOne of the things an opposition leader needs is a theory of why their party lost the last elections. Tony Blair thought Labor seemed anti-aspirational; David Cameron thought the Tories had seemed strange. Keir Starmer had, well, Jeremy Corbyn. Kemi Badenoch, it becomes clear, concluded that voters are morons.

She entered the House of Commons on Wednesday and took her place next to Chris Philp, who happens to be the shadow home secretary. He looks like a particularly angry stoat, who spent all morning chasing a shrew only to lose it just before lunch. His love of the country is such that he wore Union Jack socks. And perhaps Union Jack underwear too, although fortunately the press escaped this revelation.

From the moment the Opposition Leader stood up, it was clear she was not thinking about business. “Last week“, she startedAnd for a brief moment of joy we thought she might be about to open a debate on whether Boris Johnson had been criminally convictedOr had simply broken the law. Badenoch is exactly the type of person who would follow you around trying to restart an argument you thought was over.

But that wasn't the case. Instead, she decided to reignite the conflict over immigration. Why, she asked, in all the stages and missions of the Prime Minister, was immigration not a priority?

Was this a wise line of attack? After all, seven days earlier, Starmer was keen to talk about immigration. Couldn't he to have a few lines of attack from him in his black file? As it happens, he did. The Conservatives had conducted a “one nation experiment in open borders”.s”. Is this fair? Not entirely. Is this important? No way.

Farage and Tice at least know how and where they will fight in the next election

The Badenoch team had of course anticipated this response. Theywe are not stupid. Not like the voters. Hadn't Starmer campaigned for free movement during the hated European Union? Worse still, hadn't Starmer signed a letter opposing the deportation of a convicted criminal who then murdered someone? “He was able to stay here and murder because people like this man were campaigning against the deportation of criminals!” » Badenoch said. It was a brilliant argument, which completely demolished those who had been in government in 1977. 2020 and had, according to the Conservative leader, allowed their good judgment in being influenced by letters from Labor MPs. (Could the history of the case to have Was it more complicated than that? Maybe. Is this important? You know a little.)

As Starmer responded, Philp scoffed: “You signed the letter!” He raised his finger upwards to acknowledge the arrival of small boats, but it looked like someone trying to push something into a particularly tight space. Finally, the President reprimanded himAnd he turned very pink, like an ermine caught misbehaving in public.

Badenoch nevertheless continued to hold on. “He never answers questions!” she complained. Which is fair, but it’s also very much the idea of ​​family housing. Despite all this, over his left shoulder, the Reform MPs were have time to their lives. As the Conservative leader asked why immigration numbers had increased, Richard Tice put his head in his hands. Nigel Farage has pointed the finger at the Tory benches. They I at least know how and where theyI will fight in the next elections.

Why, Badenoch asked, did Labor abandon the policy of sending hundreds of millions of pounds – but no real asylum seekers – to Rwanda? She didn't phrase it that way, but it was still one of those questions that contains its own solution. She listed all the bad things he had done while he was a lawyer.

She accomplished this: she seemed to have got under Starmer’s skin. “I was director of public prosecutions for five years“, he replied. “Unlike anyone on the Conservative benches, I prosecuted hundreds of thousands of criminals for five years..” His work had been praised by no less an authority than Theresa Can! Having gotten that off his chest, he turned his attention to the Tories. “Not the slightest trace of remorse, not the slightest trace of contrition“, he said. “It's as if the arsonist was complaining about the people who are I'm trying to put out the fire.”

Badenoch seemed pleased with how it went, but it's hard to know what she was trying to accomplish. If talking about Rwanda and Starmer's past didn't work Julyyes, why does she think it will work nowOr in four years? Maybe at that point she's hoping that stupid voters to have I succeeded their thick skulls.

This is not to say, let us be clear, that Labor is immune to this kind of thinking. Outside the house, tractors were queued in Whitehall, blocking traffic. Starmer was asked about their protest twiceAnd each time his answer was the same: farmers do not understand the BudgetAnd are the victims of conservative “alarmists”. Faced with the possibility that you could to have makes a mistake, it's always easier to say that the electorate is wrong.