Kenneth Baker’s response to the local election results in 1990 was a masterclass in political spin. The Conservatives were routed across the country, losing 222 council seats as their vote share crashed to 33 per cent amid anger over a new poll tax.

Yet the Tory chairman brazenly declared they had won a great victory in their “flagship” boroughs of Wandsworth and Westminster, which they held using fiscal chicanery to lower the loathed new tax.

Champagne flowed in Central Office to reinforce his message. And much of the media meekly fell into line with his fake claim of triumph.

Have we just witnessed a repeat of Baker’s slick trickery, albeit without the bubbly? Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, surrounded by smiling activists, quickly pointed to their regaining of Westminster at this month’s local elections as evidence of their “great results” showing the “green shoots of recovery”. Her party put out a press release to reinforce this message, boasting about “strong” results.

And now Badenoch is being hailed by her supine media cheerleaders, who claim the Conservatives are on the path back to power despite trailing both Reform UK and the Greens, winning just 17 per cent of the vote nationwide and losing another 563 council seats. To put this in perspective, they fully control barely half as many councils as the Liberal Democrats.

Her stance helps stoke the heat on a collapsing government. And yes, the results were even more disastrous for Labour as the five million pound man Nigel Farage........

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