Britain’s Conservatives Display Their Own Bayeux Tapestry

Shortly after the Bayeux Tapestry, illustrating the Norman invasion of 1066, came to the British Museum, the Birmingham Tapestry was disclosed at a conference center at the city where the Conservatives are holding their annual meet-up this week. Some 88 feet long, beautifully executed in a spoof Medieval style, it illustrates in a series of visual gags the perceived incompetence and corruption of the Tories’ opponents on both right (Reform and Restore) and left (Labour and the Greens) and, most of all, the imminent victory of their leader, Kemi Badenoch.I love Kemi B, and I’m not alone. Although the Conservative brand — the oldest political party in the world — was woefully corrupted by decades in power which saw them aid and abet the Woke capture of all UK institutions from the BBC to the NHS, Mrs. Badenoch’s personal popularity has flourished.Before the fall of Keir Starmer, she was the most popular party leader, though the new Labour leader Andy Burnham has momentarily enchanted poll-respondents with his Bambi eyes, Kardashian lashes, and manly tears.The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, on September 10, 2026 at London. Leon Neal/Getty ImagesWith Mr. Burnham’s fervent insistence that the Magic Money Tree is still good for a few more shakes, though, it’s easy to imagine Mrs. B overtaking him by the time the next election rolls around and the financial crisis deepens. One in four Britons now identifies as disabled, sending our welfare budget spiralling.On the other hand we spend far less on defense than we should do, given President Putin’s current enthusiasm for redrawing European borders. As a poll this summer claimed that only 6 percent of Britons would actively volunteer to fight even in the face of invasion, while a barely more impressive 14 percent said they would fight if conscripted, one does wonder what we’d do with those extra weapons if we had them. A central part of Mrs Badenoch’s political plan is getting the youth of the nation out of bed and into shape; for a girl who returned alone at 16 to Britain from Nigeria (she was born here, a naive, ignorant, or foolish person but was taken back to her parents’ homeland as a baby) in order to get herself a proper education — at one point working at McDonald’s to pay her way — the sight of opportunities wasted seems to strike her as obscene. In a speech last year she spoke of the U.K. as “a welfare state with an economy attached…the rider is as big as the horse.” In short, she’s just what we need.One of the most striking sections of the revised tapestry shows Kemi, serene and stern, riding in a tank and scattering Labour’s paltry plans for the defense budget before her. Older readers might recall that Margaret Thatcher posed in a tank in 1976 when she was leader of the Conservative Party and was photographed in 1986, when she was prime minister, riding a tank around a NATO training ground in West Germany.An admirer of the Iron Lady, on the eve of the conference, Mrs. Badenoch published a 90-age pamphlet laying out her plans and called “The Right Way,” echoing “The Right Approach,” which did the same for Thatcherism 50 years ago. “We governed for 18 years after that, because we started with the right foundations,” Mrs. Badenoch said in her first speech to the conference on Sunday. “And we are going to do the same again.”On the surface, Mrs. B. is not a lot like Mrs. T; the doctor’s daughter from Lagos who can look like a stroppy teenager when off-duty in braids and trainers and the grocer’s daughter from Lincolnshire who appeared to have been born with a perm and a pussy-cat-bow blouse. But the similarities are there.Mrs. B is, as Mrs. T. was, blessed with a solid and lively marriage to (conveniently rich) men who adore them, which removes the chance of scandal that many politicians carry with them. They are both bossy by nature, which is obvious — but they both share a dry sense of humour which can go under the wire due to their air of overweening seriousness.“I’ve only got time to lose my temper and get my way!” Mrs Thatcher is once reputed to have remarked on walking into a meeting of European Union leaders. Mrs. Badenoch’s mischievous side is charming; once rarely seen smiling, her confidence in baiting both Messrs. Starmer and Burnham across the floor of the Commons — along with her personal popularity — has made her notably more carefree at a time when in theory the burden of leadership should be weighing ever-heavier on her. (It’s widely believed that if the Tories can’t beat Reform at the next election, that’s the end of them as a potential party of government.)For all of us who are sick of being called far right because we don’t believe that endless illegal immigrants should be greeted with garlands and dancing girls, it is a gift to have a woman in charge who cannot be painted as any kind of racist; there is something delightful about the fact that the person with the greatest unabashed desire to revive national pride glories in the full name of Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch. It’s wonderful to imagine her representing us on the world stage, so beautiful and cool, after all the gormless weirdos we’ve had as the international faces of our once-great nation. Yet that Tory brand — and all those years when they gave every impression of being perfectly happy as part of the uni-party which saw the electorate as something to be lectured at rather than listened to — still needs a measure more fumigation before they are deemed a safe pair of hands once more. It will take more than an elaborate tapestry, however amusing, to correct what’s wrong with this picture.

Britain’s Conservatives Display Their Own Bayeux Tapestry

Britain’s Conservatives Display Their Own Bayeux Tapestry

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