Kemi Badenoch “will get better”, one of her senior shadow ministers has said as the Conservative leader continues to languish in the polls.
Shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride insisted Mrs Badenoch is “the person to lead us” as he answered questions following a speech on Thursday.
He said: “She will get better through time at the media, she will get better through time at the dispatch box at PMQs.
“Just as Margaret Thatcher when she became leader in 75 was often criticised for everything from her hair to the clothes she wore to the pitch of her voice to heaven knows what else – in the end she got it together and Kemi will do absolutely that.”
Mrs Badenoch has faced a challenging time since taking over the Tory leadership last November.
Her party continues to poll in third place behind Reform UK and Labour, with a YouGov poll published on Wednesday showing the Conservatives on 18%, just one point ahead of the Liberal Democrats.
Mrs Badenoch’s own favourability ratings have also fallen since she became party leader, reaching minus 27% according to a More in Common poll carried out last weekend.
Meanwhile, former leadership contender Sir James Cleverly appeared to split from Mrs Badenoch on the environment in a speech on Wednesday evening, urging his party to reject climate change “luddites” on the right who believe “the way things are now is just fine”.
The Conservative leader has described herself as a “net zero sceptic” and launched her party’s policy renewal process in March by arguing it is “impossible” to reach net zero by 2050.
In his remarks on Thursday, Sir Mel said Mrs Badenoch is “leading a shadow cabinet that is united”.
He added: “Our party has not been united in that way for a very long time, and she is going to drive through the process – with me and others – so that we come to the right conclusion.”
Sir Mel’s remarks followed a speech in which he sought to distance the Conservatives from Lis Truss’s mini-budget, saying the party needs to show “contrition” to restore its economic credibility.
In a furious response, Ms Truss accused Sir Mel of having “kowtowed to the failed Treasury orthodoxy” and being “set on undermining my plan for growth”.
Calling for a “bold rewiring” of the economy, Sir Mel argued both Conservative and Labour governments in recent decades had failed to secure economic growth and improve living standards.
He went on to attack Labour and Reform UK, saying Chancellor Rachel Reeves is “fiddling the figures” and basing all her spending on borrowing, while claiming Nigel Farage’s economic plan “doubles down on the ‘magic money tree’ we thought had been banished with Jeremy Corbyn”.
In response, Labour accused Sir Mel of failing to properly apologise for the mini-budget.
A party spokesman said: “Kemi Badenoch has spent the last six months making billions of pounds of unfunded spending commitments and promoting Liz Truss’s disastrous top team.
“The Tories inflicted mortgage misery and sky-high bills on working people. Their weasel words can’t change that fact, and their unfunded plans show they will do it all over again. They haven’t changed.”
