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\n Photo by Dan Kitwood\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\n Photo by Dan Kitwood\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
In an attention economy, finding ways to grab the headlines is a political necessity. That\u2019s how to read Kemi Badenoch\u2019s Monday night warning that the UK could \u201cend up going to the IMF, cap-in-hand\u201d if worrying economic trends aren\u2019t averted.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not hard to work out what the Tory leader was attempting by invoking the spectre of the 1976 sterling crisis, which drove Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan to seek a \u00a32.9bn bailout from the International Monetary Fund. The crisis derailed the already floundering Callaghan government and cemented the impression that Labour could not be trusted with the economy \u2013 an impression that took three decades to dispel (if indeed it has been dispelled).<\/p>\n
Also unlikely to have slipped her mind is who was leading the Conservatives in opposition at the time: a certain Margaret Thatcher. In one line, Badenoch summoned the ghosts of past Labour incompetence and connected herself with the mythologised Tory leader against whom all subsequent Tory leaders are destined to be measured.<\/p>\n
The problem is twofold. First, the analogy is if not nonsense then greatly exaggerated \u2013 and not just because Rachel Reeves has said so. While the UK\u2019s economic position is hardly rosy (anaemic growth, stubborn inflation, soaring borrowing costs), the general economic consensus is that comparisons with 1976 are overblown. (Will Dunn has a great explainer<\/a>\u00a0on why gilt prices reaching a 27-year high is not the disaster it seems \u2013 though it\u2019s really not good news either.) Britain is hardly alone: bond prices are rising across Europe. It right to say that the UK is vulnerable and exposed, but also right to note (as even one of the economists who has been warning of \u201ceerie parallels\u201d between now and then has done) that an IMF bailout is hardly the most likely option. And that\u2019s before you factor in that the IMF rules might not actually allow the funds that the UK needs \u2013 as the\u00a0Telegraph\u2019s\u00a0economics editor has been arguing.<\/p>\n The second problem for Badenoch is that no one is really listening to her. This is, in fact, a big part of why she has felt the need to hit the big red button marked \u201ccap-in-hand\u201d in the first place, using emotive language to cast back to a crisis almost 50 years ago because she is struggling so hard to make her message land now. Her intervention came mere hours after Reform UK sent out a press release crowing about how the party has led the last 101 opinion polls in a row. In a sign of how seriously Keir Starmer is taking the Farage threat, last Friday\u2019s reshuffle prioritised migration, with the promotion of Shabana Mahmood to Home Secretary as the headline appointment. And while the Prime Minister dismissed Reform and the Greens as \u201cplastic patriots\u201d and \u201cplastic progressives\u201d respectively when he addressed Labour MPs on Monday night, he didn\u2019t mention the Conservatives at all.<\/p>\n Worse, people have noticed. This morning, Badenoch delivered a speech at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, in which her big pitch was an offer to work with the government on welfare reform. This generous reaching across the aisle was meant to demonstrate the Tories are serious and grown-up about fixing the nation\u2019s problems. When she opened the floor up to the media, the second question was: \u201cDo you worry that you\u2019re sliding into irrelevance?\u201d<\/p>\n The Tories have actually hit upon a line that could help define a party which has been spiralling deeper into crisis since the election. After listing all the ways in which government debt and spending were out of control, Badenoch told her audience (after all, \u201cno one understands the need to live within their means better than accountants\u201d) that \u201cthe Conservatives are the only party really making this case\u201d. She continued: \u201cEvery single other political party\u2026 wants to increase welfare spending.\u201d No need to guess who that comment was aimed at, not when Nigel Farage\u00a0has promised tax cuts in the tens of billions<\/a>\u00a0while opposing cuts to welfare and promising Reform would lift the two-child benefit cap. Indeed, asked later why she had not mentioned Reform by name, Badenoch \u2013 in a bout of fiery energy that she has been lacking lately \u2013 insisted, \u201cThey don\u2019t get any special treatment, they\u2019re just as bad as all the other left-wing parties.\u201d \u201cWe are the only party on the centre right, despite what Nigel Farage says,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only \u00a38.99 per month<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t in itself a bad strategy. Badenoch\u2019s focus on the economy makes sense (though not enough sense to justify\u00a0missing the Angela Rayner-shaped open goal at PMQs last week<\/a>). The fracturing of the electoral landscape means there is no shortage of parties demanding more public spending on various areas: in addition to Labour MPs outside the government, add the Greens, the Lib Dems, Reform and whatever name Your Party eventually chooses. The Conservatives do in fact have something approaching a USP in this arena. At the very least, it sets Badenoch\u2019s Tories apart from what Reform is offering. Remember that 46 per cent of people\u00a0believe Farage would be a risk to the economy<\/a>. The question is: who do they trust instead?<\/p>\n Badenoch stopped short of repeating her IMF worries this morning, which is just as well \u2013 that kind of attention-grabbing trick only works once. But will her belated framing of the Tories as the only party willing to be honest about the economy pay off? It might\u2026 if anyone was listening.<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/dl6pgk4f88hky.cloudfront.net\/2021\/09\/TNS_master_logo.svg\"){kind=logo}
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