Our Survey: Members think Badenoch should be using her new MPs more

It’s fair to say the last time the subject of how the the new Conservative intake of MPs are used to push the party forward – sadly at 26 not a huge number of people – it didn’t go down astounding well at headquarters. Understandable, perhaps, since every new Conservative MP elected at the 2024 General Election had been given a role from the start in Kemi Badenoch’s opposition.

However we report accurately what we are told and hear.

It’s perhaps a footnote to add, that the ConservativeHome writer who wrote the article highlighting concern about how the new intake is deployed also reported on Kemi Badenoch’s decision to include them all in her opposition line up.

Given my message to readers as I started this job is that we have only one editorial prism; that we are interested in the success of the Conservative party, and right of centre politics, I hope the whole party can agree it’s really not fair or ideal to point the flak cannon at the messenger.

However, when it comes to our survey it has always been clear who sends the message.

The membership have a voice and want it heard. All those who battled for the leadership last year said it was vital to hear that voice.It was in facilitating that endeavour that ConservativeHome was originally founded.

So back to the subject of our newest MPs.

The thing that we reported, that in the wake of the reshuffle, some thought the new intake had been undervalued, and the reshuffle had underwhelmed some MPs has been reflected in our latest results.

Feeling they are being underused, is not the same as feeling rebellious. Nor is the message aimed at the leadership, or an individual. Our survey question was directed at the Party as a whole. The answer is interesting.

Certainly, at just two per cent (Far too much and Too much combined!) there is no suggestion they are thought of as being overused.

Reassuringly for the party “enough”, the highest single criteria figure (44 per cent), think it’s about right, but the message underlying that is that just half a percentage point behind (43.5 per cent) think they are used too little, and add to that the 10.6 per cent who think they are used ‘far too little’.

This of course begs a question. If a total of 54.1 per cent think the new intake are underused, how do they want to see them used? The survey doesn’t specify but the feeling at the time of the reshuffle was that some of them should have left junior whips roles and expanded into shadow ministerial briefs.

The logic is sound. If you want, and I know Team Badenoch do, to persuade people you are changed, and new, and departing from the recent past, newbies in new roles is one way of putting that message in the front of the shop window.

Many of them have made a notable impact themselves in the Chamber. Nick Timothy, Katie Lam, Ben Obese-Jecty, Jack Rankin, Lincoln Jopp to name a few have found ways to get themselves in the fight, on the screens, in Hansard, and online. Some, including those names, and like Rebecca Smith have been writing for us here at ConservativeHome.

But is that what the membership mean by saying the 26 aren’t being used enough?

The question arose, as I say from reactions to Kemi Badenoch’s reshuffle. So we asked members about that too.

The response again has a larger ‘indifference’ factor in the 37.3 per cent ‘neither positive nor negative’ which in itself might be disappointing, if it weren’t for the fact that both positive (30.3 per cent) and very positive (5.3 percent) is higher at 35.6 per cent than the collective negatives and very negative of 27.1 per cent.

It’s not resounding, and overall the result echoes a feeling that in the end it was a rather muted affair than a wholesale revamp. My sense from talking to both the leadership team and MPs is that it was probably always going to be a lower key affair than people imagined.

Some agree with the wisdom of that, some were quite disappointed by it.

This year’s Conference will be interesting. Seeing who starts to shine brighter and who does not.

After last year however, personalities are not where the party leadership is aiming at Conference. It’s widely expected we’ll get a move on leaving the ECHR before-hand and then watch focus turn very determinedly on the economy, and policy proposals around that.

Anyone internally who wisely worried that might leave a gap of focus on immigration, obviously spent this summer hidden in a cave in the Himalayas.