Kemi Badenoch is unlikely to rescue the Tories, never mind the UK. Her selection as Conservative leader does set a precedent with the coming to office of the first black female leader of a major political party.

The fact the Tories have again beaten Labour in the diversity stakes must stick in the craw for Labour. Yet Sir Keir Starmer‘s party still has the upper hand in the years ahead.

Whatever early poll lead Labour may have lost since its stonking great victory on July 4 – albeit one on the thinnest of margins – Badenoch and the Tories will still be waiting until 2029 until they get a chance to form the next government.

Let that sink in! If one thinks the UK today is in a pitiful state, just imagine what Sir Keir and co can do between now and the decade’s end.

Put crudely, it may simply be too late for Badenoch or even Nigel Farage to turn the ship around. Badenoch will also have her work cut out with the Tories. If this leadership election highlighted anything it was how deeply divided this party really is, split between the ostensible Tory Right like Badenoch and Robert Jenrick (the latter having had something of a Damascene conversion) and the centrist One Nation Tories who didn’t even get a candidate in the final two.

The Conservatives also remain heavily tainted by the toxicity of the Covid and post-Covid years, having seemingly failed on their own terms and manifesto commitments.

Will voters forgive and forget? Maybe, especially with a new broom in Badenoch, as the memory fades of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, and as Labour takes Britain further down the path of managed decline.

But in three-way marginals – especially in northern and coastal areas – Farage’s Reform UK could be just as much a beneficiary as the Conservatives. The Reform leader has already set out a strong case against the new Tory leader, a message his fiercest backers will likely heed.

The road ahead for Kemi Badenoch can only be tough, with her newfound power perhaps something of a poisoned chalice. She must cope with a divided party, which won’t be easily forgiven by a long-memory electorate, and which must also contend with the challenger Reform UK outflanking the Conservatives at every turn.

True, Badenoch strikes a different tone to Rishi Sunak‘s managerialism, but vibes alone won’t defeat Labour, which again has nearly five years to remould Britain, perhaps finishing the job off which began in earnest under Tony Blair.

It is worth remembering also that New Labour was so successful in the late 90s and 00s that the Tories felt the only way they could win an election was to finish what Labour had started. Hence David ‘heir to Blair’ Cameron and a Johnson-led government which gave Britain record-breaking immigration.

Could lightening strike twice? Meaning (apart from the fact Badenoch may find it hard to overcome such a huge Labour majority) Labour will have remade Britain so much by 2029 that the only way the Tories

 feel they could win would be to follow Starmerism in spirit and action, including on what is likely to remain the ongoing thorny issue of European re-integration?

Ultimately Badenoch must lead an unloved, battle-scarred and divided Conservative Party, which won’t get a sniff of power until 2029, and may find she can only win by continuing the work of this new Labour government, and would in any event be leading a country so thoroughly broken as to likely be irredeemable.

Vibes got Badenoch over the line last weekend. But vibes alone cannot defeat Labour. With the Tories tainted and split, Labour entrenched in power with all the ramifications this has for Britain, and with Reform UK going nowhere (and increasingly seen as the authentic voice of British “conservatism”), Badenoch will struggle to rescue her party never mind her country.