Who wishes WhatsApp had disappearing messages switched on?
This week’s Who’s Top, Who’s Not looks at Kemi Badenoch’s strongest week in months, Keir Starmer’s mixed fortunes, and why Pat McFadden finds himself firmly at the bottom of the rankings in a week dominated by WhatsApp fallout.
Read all about it in this week's Who's Top, Who's Not - brought to you by Whitehouse's Eden Reyhanian
Top: Kemi Badenoch
Kemi Badenoch takes the top spot this week after her strongest performance in some time, and one that demonstrates a sharper political instinct than her critics might think. Her decision to distance herself from Nigel Farage’s rhetoric on Henry Nowak earned the rare acknowledgement from Keir Starmer across the despatch box and will not have gone unnoticed on either side of the House.
Badenoch is offering voters who are drawn to Reform’s diagnosis of Britain’s problems a political home that does not require them to accept Reform’s style or methods. When the Tories try to out-Farage Farage, they continue to lose their own identity and surrender the politically vacant economic competence position that has traditionally been found in the British political centre.
There are some who argue that the political centre is now an electoral no-man's land, especially in an era of multi-party politics with greater polarisation, and it will be interesting to see if Kemi goes further right on some social issues whilst also trying to reclaim the Tories’ lost reputation for economic competence.
For a leader whose authority within her own party has at times looked fragile, this was a week that gave her troops something to rally around. The question now is whether she can sustain it and whether her assertive leadership translates into the only test that actually matters for a leader of the opposition: the ability to get into government.
Middle: Keir Starmer
Starmer enters the middle this week, having banked a genuine moment via cross-party condemnation of Farage’s Nowak remarks, only to see the week’s narrative overtaken by a story of his own government’s making. His condemnation of Farage was firm, landed well and was a reminder that moral clarity is one of Starmer’s strengths when he chooses to deploy it. But the Pat McFadden messages to Peter Mandelson have reopened the welfare story that his team needed buried and have left him needlessly exposed.
Many are already claiming the now infamous Pat McFadden quote - “All Labour does is ask ‘who can we tax?’” - will be this generation's Liam Byrne note. The Tories and Reform have been licking their lips at this quote, knowing that it will be plastered across thousands of adverts, posters, leaflets and placards from now until 2029 and beyond.
Bottom: Pat McFadden
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Pat McFadden, finds himself at the bottom this week, and the uncomfortable truth is that the damage is completely self-inflicted.
The private messages to former US ambassador Peter Mandelson have driven a wedge between him and Labour backbenchers who are already uneasy about the government’s direction on welfare. Opposition parties have already pounced, and this will be the gift that keeps on giving for them. It is particularly painful for Labour because a) it acts as a proof point for a public perception that already exists when it comes to the Labour Party and b) because it reopens old wounds when it comes to welfare reform with this parliamentary party and makes McFadden’s attempts to do anything else in this space politically impossible.
But it is worth asking whether there is some sympathy due as these were private messages? But that is the reality of politics in the WhatsApp era, especially for those without a disappearing message function.