Kemi Badenoch's reshuffle shows the Tories are ready to make Labour sweat

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James Price from the Centre for Policy Studies has explored the significance of Kemi Badenoch's sweeping changes

Opposition looks like a lonely and miserable business. No red boxes, no officials making you tea, no ministerial car. Just look at how bitter it turned Labour over 14 years. Unlike being in Government, where the press is obliged to cover your activities, opposition is a slog to get the attention of the public.

That’s why enthusiasm and energy, despite the indifference of the media, is the most underrated skill in a shadow minister. Being out and about, trying to cause trouble for the government, whilst still looking serious and convincing, like a ‘government-in-waiting’ is an even more delicate tightrope to walk.

Ed Davey has managed, occasionally, to get attention. But given that that attention has been for looking like such an utter embarrassment that William Gladstone is turning in his grave at the speed of a washing machine, he has failed the second.

But the new Conservative reshuffle has elevated a few characters who manage to pull off both. Andrew Griffith, the new Shadow Chancellor, is one. Griffith is one of a small number of MPs in recent decades to have had not just a successful private sector career, but a very successful one. CFO and COO of Sky, a huge British business success story, has given him a better understanding of the private sector than anyone the Labour Party could offer up.

Indeed, I crunched the numbers, and Griffith alone has more years of private sector experience than the entirety of the Labour cabinet… COMBINED. This is an extraordinary fact and will stand him in good stead when it comes to scrutinising what will soon be the evident haplessness of Burnham’s government.

And then there is the installation of Tom Tugendhat as Foreign Secretary.

A former soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tugendhat was a clear eyed prophet in warning about the threat of the Chinese Communist Party when the Treasury was still trying to sell them our nuclear power stations. Beijing sanctioned him for this advocacy, a badge of honour.

Just compare him to Ed Miliband, the Foreign Secretary. Imagine who you would want to represent Britain out on the world stage.

Perhaps the most encouraging move of all, though, was to install the new MP Katie Lam as the shadow Housing and Communities Secretary. Lam has been the star of the new intake, and has shown the future of the Right in that she is incredibly robust on all issues, but manages to communicate that in a calm, measured, stateswoman-like way that will help to win middle of the road voters over to the reforms necessary to save Britain.

To see her going up against Angela Rayner will be like watching an F-35 jet fighter in a dogfight against one of those flightless cormorants found on the Galapagos Islands.

This move also signals a willingness to put talented fresh faces to the fore. Badenoch should do more of this. For example, Dr Ben Spencer is a Tory MP who worked as a consultant psychiatrist in the NHS, and now knows more about AI than almost any other MP. People like him should be promoted to show the public that there is still much talent coming through the ranks.

If Kemi does that, it will show the Right is where the ideas and energy are, and show Labour up as totally bankrupt.