Could Kemi Badenoch be our next Prime Minister?

WEST KINGSDOWN, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 15: Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch sits in a Formula 4 race car during a visit to Brands Hatch on December 15, 2025 in West Kingsdown, England. Badenoch launches pledge that the next Conservative government will scrap the Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) mandate on car manufacturers that currently requires them to produce a number of electric vehicles and end Labour's 2030 ban on petrol and diesel cars. They say plans to end huge taxpayer subsidies currently used to implement the mandate will save taxpayers £3.8 billion. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has several critical personal talents that are not easily replicated, and the polls are starting to move in her favour, says George Trefgarne

Something astonishing is happening in British politics. Bedevilled by an entire generation of dud politicians, including now Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, we suddenly find that a 5ft 4” lady brought up in Nigeria, who went to nine schools before she was 16 because her country was falling apart, is steadily ascending in the polls.

I am going to stick my neck out: Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party and of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition (a distinctly British constitutional role), might be Prime Minister, as soon as 2028. That is despite the fact that our central forecast is still that the next government will be some sort of Tory Reform combination or a pro-EU one led by Wes Streeting. If she is leader of the biggest party, the King will call her, not Nigel Farage. For the first time, it is not impossible to imagine such an eventuality.

In evidence, I offer first a poll from More In Common, which shows that the total of those who say they will vote Conservative combined with those who will consider doing so has overtaken all other parties including Reform.

Second, a poll from YouGov. Starting from a low base, Kemi is herself gently recovering in the polls and is now preferred as Prime Minister........

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