Key appointments for the new Conservative leader (1)

Whether Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick becomes leader of the Conservative Party next month, there will be some roles in the party which will be vital to its fortunes

It is now only two weeks until the new leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party is announced, on Saturday 2 November. The contest seems to have been going on forever—in fact it began on 24 July—and we now know that the winner will be either Kemi Badenoch, the 44-year-old MP for North West Essex and shadow housing, communities and local government secretary, or 42-year-old Robert Jenrick, MP for Newark who resigned as minister of state for immigration from the last government in December 2023. Badenoch would be the first leader of one of the main parties to be a graduate of the University of Sussex, while Jenrick would be the first Cambridge alumnus to lead the Conservatives since Michael Howard in 2005 (and the fifth ever, after A.J. Balfour, Austen Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin and Howard).

Because so many cabinet ministers lost their seats at the general election, Rishi Sunak, who announced the day after the election that he would resign as soon as a successor had been chosen, had to reshuffle the party’s front bench more extensively than he would have liked. However, it is understood on all sides that the current shadow cabinet is only an interim one and the new leader will have a free hand in making appointments. If we are honest, most shadow cabinet ministers are virtually anonymous outside Westminster, though that does not mean they are not important, but there are about half a dozen posts which will be critical in helping the new leader begin the long and arduous business of recovery. Over the next two or three essays in this series, I will examine some of these roles, explain why they are so important and identify some candidates who could or should be under consideration.

Shadow chancellor

Opposing the chancellor of the Exchequer is never an easy task. When it comes to data, to numbers and forecasts and expenditure, he (or now she) has the apparatus of HM Treasury behind him, and can draw on every corner of the civil service for briefing and preparation. The shadow chancellor will have a handful of advisers, some of whom may have more enthusiasm than expertise. There is nowhere to hide: now more than ever, with the insatiable appetite for content of 24-hour news and the unblinking eye of social media, the slightest miscalculation, error or even verbal stumble will be preserved and broadcast for all time.

Gordon Brown was chancellor for 10 years, and stood at the despatch box against seven Conservative opponents: Kenneth Clarke briefly, Peter Lilley, Francis Maude, Michael Portillo, Michael Howard, Oliver Letwin and George Osborne. Of the six substantive shadow chancellors, only Osborne managed to hold his own, taking on the role in May 2005 by which time Brown was distracted by his prime ministerial ambitions. Brown himself had performed creditably as shadow chancellor against Norman Lamont (1992-93) and Kenneth Clarke (1993-97), but Brown was, at his height, a formidable if dour figure: fearsomely intelligent, solid and always dauntingly prepared in terms of policy, a strong and punchy debater if lacking lightness of touch. His friend and mentor, John Smith, had occupied the role before him, from 1987 to 1992, and was in some ways a cut above Brown, but even he had struggled to hold Nigel Lawson to more than a draw during their overlap.

It is possible to do the job well. Iain Macleod (1965-70) was highly rated for his debating ability, his quick, sharp intellect (he was a championship-level bridge player) and his work ethic; Denis Healey (1972-74) clearly had the upper hand over Edward Heath’s insubstantial chancellor Anthony Barber. But many more politicians, even ones gifted in other roles and other contexts, have found the position of shadow chancellor a vale of tears: Robert Carr (1974-75) and Anneliese Dodds (2020-21) stand out as having struggled.

The post is, for all that, a classic case of “high risk, high reward”. Some may disagree, but I don’t think Rachel Reeves is in fact an especially formidable chancellor. She may hold great sway within Whitehall and be able to make the Treasury’s writ run far and wide, but in terms of face-to-face encounters, she is neither charismatic nor forceful in debate. Newsnight editor Ian Katz may have been harsh in dubbing her “boring, snoring” in 2013, when she was shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, but her reputation, such as it is, rests in quiet competence and solidity. Even her much-vaunted economic credentials have been overplayed: she was indeed an economist at the Bank of England, but that was 20 years ago (2000-06), and she was only 27 when she left to join the Bank of Scotland and then, before long, become a Labour Party candidate.

There is a potential opportunity to shine for the right candidate. It was widely suggested that Mel Stride launched his unexpected bid for the Conservative leadership not with any realistic expectation of victory but as a way to pitch for the role of shadow chancellor; it was noted that he had been a Treasury minister from 2017 to 2019 and chair of the House of Commons Treasury Committee from 2019 to 2022. He was also frequently deployed by the government for media appearances during the recent general election campaign and developed a reputation as a safe pair of hands, which is no mean accolade in politics. It must be admitted, however, that his public profile is extremely low, and, while likeable and dependable, he is not a powerful orator nor does he have an obviously dynamic persona. With four or five years until a general election, there would be time for him to build his recognition and perhaps sharpen his jabs, but he would represent a work in progress.

It is by no means a prerequisite for the office, but it may surprise you to learn that, apart from Stride, the 121 Conservative MPs who remain include 21 who have served as ministers at the Treasury in some capacity. Of those, we can safely rule out Rishi Sunak, Jeremy Hunt and possibly Dame Priti Patel as having moved on from the front line (if Patel is offered a role, I doubt it would be shadow chancellor). The two leadership contenders, Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick, were both exchequer secretary to the Treasury, one of the more junior ministerial positions, so in theory either could offer the role of shadow chancellor to the defeated rival (though my intuition tells me that will not be the case).

Without wishing to be unduly unkind, we can probably also rule out the following on the grounds that they lack the necessary political heft for such a key role: Dame Harriett Baldwin, Steve Barclay, John Glen, Richard Fuller, Helen Whately, Alan Mak, Chris Philp, Edward Argar, Victoria Atkins, Nigel Huddleston, James Cartlidge, Gareth Davies. Damian Hinds, currently interim shadow education secretary, did serve in cabinet under Theresa May for 18 months but is an unlikely pick, as is the deep-thinking, cerebral Jesse Norman, who lacks the necessary partisan punch. Laura Trott was chief secretary to the Treasury at the end of Rishi Sunak’s administration, and currently shadows that role. She is relatively young (not yet 40) and personable, and worked as a special adviser and in the Number 10 Policy Unit before she was elected MP for Sevenoaks in 2019, but she would need to grow substantially in stature if appointed and is an unlikely pick.

The one remaining former Treasury minister could be a dark horse. Andrew Griffith is currently shadow science, innovation and technology secretary, and was financial secretary to the Treasury in Liz Truss’s 49-day government then stepped down a level to be economic secretary from 2022 to 2023. His background before Parliament does something to recommend him: he is a chartered accountant, and worked for Rothschild & Co and PwC before joining Sky as a financial analyst in 1999. Withion ten years he had risen to chief financial officer, the youngest financial director of a FTSE 100 company, and then became group chief operating officer at Sky in 2016. He was briefly Boris Johnson’s chief business adviser before being elected to the House of Commons for Arundel and South Downs in December 2019. Griffith’s business and finance credentials are arguably more impressive than those of the chancellor of the Exchequer, therefore, but he has also quickly found his feet in opposition. He has been active and punchy in probing some of Labour’s civil service appointments, and recently set out a clear and coherent, if necessarily general, vision of what Conservative economic policy could look like. He has declared his support for Kemi Badenoch in the leadership election.

Existing big beasts without a Treasury background would include unsuccessful leadership contenders James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat. Either is possible though both seem better suited to other portfolios. Cleverly talked encouragingly of the importance of opportunity and free markets in his tilt at the crown, and had a career in business before entering politics, but his ministerial experience has been concentrated in foreign affairs, law and order and national security. The latter holds true for Tugendhat too, who has spent all but two years of his career as an MP either chairing the Foreign Affairs Committee or as minister then shadow minister for security.

Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy security and net zero secretary, had been tipped for chancellor of the Exchequer at the end of the last government, and has worked at investment bank Merrill Lynch and as a Treasury special adviser. She was, however, very much the protégée of Rishi Sunak, serving as his spad when he was chief secretary to the Treasury. Like Trott, she is only 39 and might be felt to lack the statute and the resilience to be such a lynchpin of the opposition, and she has been relatively anonymous since the election. Like Griffith, Coutinho has declared her support for Badenoch.

What should the new leader look for in a shadow chancellor? As far as the portfolio itself is concerned, the Conservatives will need to demonstrate two things. The first is straightforward economic competence; this was an area in which Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, not least because of his and Reeves’s sheer lack of sparkle and charisma, egded the last government out. They devised a few clear messages which were bland and reassuring, and then pressed them home relentlessly, to considerable effect. In essence, the Conservatives will have to “derisk” the economy as a factor by the time of the next election, so that voters, whatever other issues may concern them, have no reason not to vote Conservative on grounds of economic management. That will not be enough on its own, however.

To shift the electoral calculus as dramatically as they need to, the Conservatives must also differentiate themselves from the government. Voters must be given a sense, however broad-brush, of how things would be both different and better under a future Conservative government when it comes to the economy and, more broadly, to prosperity, employment, investment and standards of living. My view is clear: as I wrote in City AM the day after the election, Britain will prosper in “a free market and an economy characterised by free enterprise”, a country “with competition and profit driving innovation, efficiency and prosperity”. Equally, I think at its core the Labour Party does not share this belief, and I have written about its attitude to private wealth, its ambivalent underlying relationship with business and its interventionist tendencies.

Jenrick and Badenoch have projected similar beliefs in broadly Thatcherite orthodoxy: the former argues taxes are too high and “it is possible to have a smaller state and a more competitive economy”; the latter has spoken of “growing our economy… making people productive again… getting people out of unproductive jobs and there are many, and into jobs that are creating wealth for all of us”. But whatever the direction of ideological travel, the message developed, refined and broadcast over the next four or five years must be distinct and easy to grasp. The Conservative Party needs the proverbial man on the Clapham omnibus to conjure up two or three simple, forward-looking, optimistic ideas that they identify as recognisably Conservative and want to vote for.

This means that the shadow chancellor must as a bare minimum be a plausible future finance minister, the sort of person whom voters can imagine supervising the economy prudently and reliably. He or she cannot seem insubstantial or less than sure-footed, and that consideration would count against someone like Trott or Barclay. But reassurance need not entail being boring. Indeed, to make the economy a subject on which the party can match and beat Labour, the shadow chancellor will need to be one of the best communicators available, able to make the message resonate with the public and continue to do so for the length of the parliament, and also able to translate dry economic measures and impenetrable statistics into changes for the better which people will feel in their day-to-day lives. He or she must act as a bridge between the world of finance, taxation, economic forecasts and global markets on the one hand and living standards, funding for public services, wages and prices on the other.

It was Democratic political consultant James Carville in 1992 who summed up electoral campaigns as hinging on “the economy, stupid”, but he was identifying an existing truth rather than redefining politics. After all, almost every issue which exercises voters—schools, the NHS, housing, transport, policing and criminal justice—relies on the underpinning of a vibrant and sustainable economy. It is the sine qua non, and that means that the shadow chancellor will inevitably be one of the most important figures in the party. So the next leader will need a gifted communicator who understands economic policy enough to reassure voters and can articulate a positive and distinct vision of a future Conservative administration.

Shadow home secretary

The home affairs brief is less of a fixture at the very top of an opposition party than the economy. In their last 13-year-long period out of power, the Conservatives burned through eight shadow home secretaries, and the person appointed to run the Home Office when the coalition government was formed in 2010, Theresa May, had not been one of them. The inexplicable Chris Grayling, shadow home secretary in 2009-10, is remembered as a totem of disaster, but how many people remember that Brian Mawhinney occupied the role in 1997-98, or that Oliver Letwin was shadow home secretary for the entirety of Iain Duncan Smith’s tenure as leader?

Occasionally a home affairs spokesman will shine. Tony Blair, of course, used the position as a platform form which he won the party leadership after John Smith’s unexpected death in 1994, while Yvette Cooper has twice been shadow home secretary (2011-15 and 2021-24) to prepare for the substantive role after July’s general election. In the current political climate, however, it is a vital position because of the level of public interest in and anxiety about immigration, border security, public order and policing, all of which fall within the remit of the Home Office. Evidence seems to suggest that one reason for the collapse in the Conservative Party’s electoral support (one, admittedly, among many) was a perception, substantially supported by reality, that the previous government was unable to control levels of immigration or maintain secure borders. Successive Conservative manifestos promised to reduce net immigration “to the tens of thousands”, yet by the last years of the government the number of newcomers was consistently exceeding half a million a year.

There is not yet a settled consensus within the Conservative Party, let alone on the right of British politics, about the nature and extent of the issues of immigration, borders, integration, cohesion and identity, and therefore there are no agreed remedies. As an obvious example, Robert Jenrick has made a central part of his offering a promise to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, which he believes is irredeemably preventing governments from taking the actions necessary to manage immigration and remove those who are refused asylum or leave to remain. Kemi Badenoch, by contrast, has argued that withdrawing from the convention will be so divisive within the party that it will be counter-productive and distract from addressing the underlying challenges.

Whoever becomes shadow home secretary will need to be of absolutely one mind with the new leader on the major issues of migration and border security. These areas of policy are not just important for the operation of major parts of government and of significant concern to the public, but they are also highly emotive and can turn disagreements over policy into fundamental (and fundamentalist) ideological incompatibilities; too easily mutual acceptance of good faith can be set aside. So it would be unsustainable to have a shadow home secretary who had a difference of approach from the new leader, partly because it would risk souring the relationship between them and partly because it would be a constant source of rumour, division and commentary.

Again, while there is not yet a consensus in policy terms, once the new leader reaches a settled and agreed approach, the shadow home secretary must be able to champion this in a persuasive and easily understood way. Trust and openness are particularly important here: because there have been so many occasions on which politicians have promised to control numbers and yet have been unable to do so, the electorate is sceptical of politicians’ intentions and competence. Whatever the new policy is, therefore, it must convince voters that it is practical and effective, and that it will be implemented rather than set aside as a thwarted ambition. The shadow home secretary will also have to work hard to give policy as broad a base of support as possible: the Conservatives cannot, for example, simply launch themselves to the right and attempt to outdo Reform UK, but at the same time they must convince that part of the electorate which is concerned about immigration that voting Conservative will make a significant difference to events on the ground.

Conservative shadow home secretaries have tended to fall into one of two categories, either relatively progressive social liberals—like Edward Boyle (164-65), Ian Gilmour (1975-76) or Dominic Grieve (2008-09)—or more stern-faced believers in harsh measures, like Willie Whitelaw (1976-79), Brian Mawhinney (1997-98) and Ann Widdecombe (1999-2001). It is not at all clear that such a straightforward dichotomy will be sufficient as we move into the second half of the 2020s, certainly not if the party is to expand its support base in the way needed to move back towards office.

Next time…

In part two of this series, I will turn to the roles of chairman of the Conservative Party and shadow health and social care secretary. Stay tuned.