Can Kemi Badenoch save the Tories with Thatcherism 2.0?

In October 2025, Kemi Badenoch took to the stage to deliver her first conference speech as leader of the Conservatives against a backdrop of murmurings of dissent about her leadership.

The atmosphere at the conference had been flat, and Nigel Farage loomed large over the annual get-together after a steady stream of Tories defected to Reform UK.

However, fast forward a year to this year’s conference in Birmingham and one thing is clear – this is undoubtedly Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative Party now, as In The Room hosts Helen and Cleo discovered.

“The love and devotion and strength of feeling towards Kemi is absolutely real,” former deputy cabinet secretary Helen MacNamara said on the latest episode of the podcast. “There were people we met who had come to the conference for the first time because they’re inspired by her leadership.”

While the Conservatives continue to struggle in the polls, Ms Badenoch’s personal approval rating has been steadily on the rise over the last year. Both hosts agree that this year’s conference seemed much more buoyant, hopeful, and confident than previous. And, notably, there wasn’t a ‘single whisper’ against the leader, which Helen points out as very unusual for any party conference.

Could this energetic renewal just be the blessing of being the opposition? Potentially. But under Badenoch, the Tory party has also been doing something lightly crucial to finding success in politics: the work.

“Kemi and her team have learnt from Keir Starmer’s experience,” Helen says, “and one of the lessons they’ve taken is that you have to do your thinking outside of government.

“Opposition is the time when you really have to work out what your party stands for. You’re making choices the moment you’re inside, so do all that thinking before, and they’ve done that in spades.”

Part of that work this week was Badenoch publishing “The Right Way” ahead of the conference – a political pamphlet modelled directly from Margaret Thatcher's 1976 manifesto “The Right Approach”.

‘The Right Approach’ sought to reject the old world of Toryism, cementing the ideological basis for Thatcherism as a focus on reduced spending and taxes, stricter rule of law, personal responsibility, and improved education standards.

Kemi, conjuring up these old-fashioned Conservative values, said it was time to “apply the [same] lessons to the challenges facing Britain today.”

The whole move trills with a very direct message, for both those within the party and anyone looking in from outside, Helen argues: If you want to be part of my party, these are the things that we believe.

It’s perhaps much more of a direct, back-to-basics approach than the Tories could have boasted in their years in government. But can personal power translate into more voters? Not necessarily. Ex-No 10 special adviser Cleo Watson says: ”People seem to like her and have a good sense of who she is. But her party is polling now 11 points behind Labour. They’re quite comfortably third after Reform.”

Recent polling shows Labour up a point to 30 per cent, while Reform take second place with 24 per cent. Conservatives sit at third with 19 per cent. Lib Dems, 9 per cent. Greens, 8 per cent.

For Helen, Badenoch’s Iron Lady-esque approach doesn’t feel like the overhaul the party might need, seeing as they’ve struggled to capture a proper majority of the country for over a decade. 2010 saw them in a coalition partnership with the Lib Dems, and they only achieved a tiny majority in 2015, before going back to a minority in 2017.

While 2019 saw a ‘tub-thumping’ vote for Boris Johnson and Getting Brexit Done, but that same big vote then went straight to Keir Starmer in 2024.

“It’s not a ringing endorsement of a Conservative-only agenda,” Helen says. “This notion that what the electorate really needs is old-fashioned small C right-wing conservatives is a really funny two plus two equals what?”

Cleo references Luke Tryl, her “favourite pollster” for More in Common, on his findings on the Tory leader. “He said that if you show focus groups videos of Kemi Badenoch, particularly at PMQs, where she’s become much stronger, they really, really like her.

“But when you ask if they’d vote Conservative, only a fifth of the people in the room will say yes.”

Listen to the full episode of In The Room on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or watch on YouTube.