Kemi Badenoch smiles from the stump as she heads towards oblivion | John Crace

The relaxed demeanour of the Tory leader suggests she is just relieved that things aren’t worse than they could be It’s common knowledge that Kemi Badenoch is not an early morning person. Or an any time of morning person. Look at her in the wrong way and you’re likely to catch an earful. So it must have taken a lot of persuading from Conservative central office to get her out and about at 9am. But needs must. All week it has been Reform setting the news agenda, with three press conferences in as many days, and the Tories have barely had a look in. You could almost have forgotten that, for the time being, at any rate, the Conservatives are still the official opposition. Their relevance diminishes by the day.