If Badenoch carries on like this, she'll be prime minister

It is a good time to be Kemi Badenoch.

- EMILY SHEFFIELD

Serious as the subject is, the leader of the Conservatives is clearly enjoying taking on Rachel Reeves over alleged fudged numbers and broken promises in the wake of the Budget.

At a particularly punchy news conference in the City on Monday morning, Badenoch hit out hard at the “false information” the chancellor had appeared to give “deliberately” in order to allow her Budget a “soft landing” - a deeply sobering charge that has seen Badenoch’s party call for the UK’s financial regulator to investigate “possible market abuse” by people working in the Treasury and Downing Street in the run-up to the Budget.

“If a chief executive had done this, they’d have been sacked,” Badenoch said.

As usual, she has a point - which is not something you can say of the woman in her sights. Walking past the saccharine paint-by-numbers art of the traditional screevers along Hyde Park this weekend reminded me of our chancellor’s weaker waffle in the lead-up to her Budget.

Despite months of chaos, Reeves stood and moralised to a nation, asking them to think of the “poor children” as she imposed £26bn of tax rises on hardworking families, many of whom are skirting just above poverty. Contrast that with Kemi’s blistering and bombastic riposte at the despatch box last Wednesday, which was both strikingly effective and proof that she has finally found her footing.

“A smorgasbord of misery” was one corker, but it was “a Budget for Benefits Street, paid for by working people” that really stuck. And when she turned to her MPs with the rallying cry, “What have we got? Welfare spending - up! Universal credit claimants - up! Debt interest - up! Inflation - up! Growth - down! Business confidence - down!”, you knew this moment had been expertly orchestrated to dominate social media clicks.