Badenoch given six months to save leadership, say MPs

Kemi Badenoch has been warned she has six months to turn the Conservative Party around or she will face a leadership challenge.

- DAVID MADDOX

As she marks her first year as leader, senior Tory sources have told The Independent that Ms Badenoch will have to go if the party is hit by another terrible set of results in the May elections in Wales, Scotland and English local councils - with Robert Jenrick the favourite to succeed her.

While Ms Badenoch has put in some good performances at Prime Minister's Questions in recent weeks and was widely praised for her conference speech, critics have noted that she has failed to improve the Tories' historically low position in the polls.

One senior Tory source said: "Before Kemi's speech we were averaging 17 points in the polls and after Kemi's speech we were averaging 17 points in the polls. Nothing has changed and we are going nowhere with her." It is also regularly pointed out that the party was averaging around 24 per cent a year ago, when she became leader.

Meanwhile a shadow minister complained that after the conference speech, where she unveiled a number of policies including abolishing stamp duty, she has largely gone to ground again.

They said: "She gave a half decent speech at conference and now she thinks she can hibernate all winter. She forgets she's the leader of the opposition and not a hedgehog." Another critic described Ms Badenoch as "the living dead" with "everybody waiting for the end".

They added: "It may be that there is a move against her in January or February as the reality of the electoral oblivion that is to follow sinks in, but it will probably be May now - but not later."