Kemi has thrown on the mantle of the Terminator now she should heed Arnie’s words, “the future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves”. There is everything to play for.

You could hear the screech of brakes and the smell of burning rubber as, after getting  lost on his way to the podium, the ridiculous Jenrick shoved his tongue so far up Nigel Farage’s backside that you needed a team of sniffer dogs to remove it. Was it only a few weeks ago that Nigel wasn’t fit to run our schools and hospitals? And was it only a few weeks ago that Nigel described BJ as a fraud? How blinding ambition can show the world in a different perspective. However, they were both right.

 

Anyone with half a brain in the Westminster bubble knew that Bobby J was an ocean going shit. It was the professional photo shoots of him looking wistfully into the middle distance that really began to annoy me. He was trying to show that he had a vision. That he is a man of destiny. All politicians are suspicious of self proclaimed men of destiny. I remember when Michael Portillo changed his haircut from pudding basin to quiff and making vision type speeches. As he was professing undying loyalty to John Major his supporters were installing phone lines just in case somebody would give him the great great honour of asking him to become leader of the Conservatives. It didn’t end well.

 

And then there was Boris Johnson who gave us the double whammy of trashing the constitution and the Conservative Party and is still is waiting for the phone to ring.

 

Politics has always been full of chancers, snake oil salesmen and those with a molten ambition that they confuse with ability and principle . They always get found out in the end, but their legacy tends to leave their party damaged and derided by voters who are fed up with ambition, incompetence and lies. It takes years for for the electorate to take that party seriously again. Then along comes Kemi. The Terminator.

 

The electorate are still not listening to the Conservatives yet, but an uptick in the polls suggests that they are by no means written off. They like leaders who lead, who are straight talking, who take decisive action, who have beliefs rather than visions.

 

The latest opinion polls show that the public overwhelmingly support Badenoch’s sacking of Jenrick. He is the personification of everything the public despise in a politician.  And now he has become a joke. Which is worse,  although not as bad as making an enemy of Priti Patel. Parliament needs to provide him with a safe space. And it isn’t Reform.

 

Politics is all about judgement. Jenrick has shown he has none. In many ways he is Liz Truss with a brain. Both “went on a journey” convincing themselves that every betrayal, knifing and u turn was an important point of principle  and eventually ended up in the  graveyard of political expectations as national figures of ridicule. Now it is being put about that he was betrayed by senior figures in Reform. It doesn’t matter whether that is true or not. There now will always be a niggling doubt in Bobby J’s mind that Farage doesn’t trust him. It shouldn’t be a niggling doubt. Of course he doesn’t.

 

So this man of destiny, this mighty political Colossus,  now sits with Nadine Dorries, Andrea Jenkyns, Lee Anderson, Nadhim Zahawi and Danny Kruger. It’s like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. So who will be next to go? Suella Braverman, (a wonderful Nurse Ratched) Jacob Rees Mogg or Mr Blobby? The sort of people who can’t tell the difference between a political orgasm and a heart attack.

 

An embattled Starmer started off quite well by attacking disunity with in the Tories. But this morning the Number 10 Kindergarten started briefing against Wes Streeting  With some ministers going so far as to tell their leader to follow the example of Badenoch  and sack him. Madness.

 

Anything can happen in politics and as Kemi has shown, leadership is seizing the moment. But the chances of Starmer being removed this year are remote.

 

The tectonic plates of politics are beginning to move. The Tories have moved off of life support but there is still a way to go before they being taken seriously by the voters. What matters is that Badenoch is. There is everything to play for.

It might be instructive to for the Conservative Party to revisit the Terminator. “The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves”. 
 

And how to deal with what seems like an unstoppable machine like Reform. “It cannot be bargained with. It doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead”. Kemi Badenoch has flung on  the mantle of the Terminator. If I was Farage I would be afraid, very afraid.