The Keminaissance will be delayed. For nearly a year, Conservative optimists and a clutch of supportive pundits have been forecasting an upturn in the fortunes of Kemi Badenoch, confident that her party will emerge from the crater it fell into in 2024, overtake Reform UK to become once again the main party of the right and, who knows, maybe, with a following wind, even push Labour aside and return to government. Every sign of strength from the Tory leader – a robust conference speech here, a viral clip on social media there – has been hailed as evidence of the coming Keminaissance. On the evidence of the past week or so, we will have to wait a little longer.

It’s quite true that Badenoch’s personal ratings are better than those of her party. True, too, that she ended a long losing streak when the Tories won a Westminster seat at the Aberdeen South byelection in June. But there is a more recent election result that should temper the boosters’ enthusiasm, along with a series of decisions that confirm that, when it comes to both strategy and judgment, Badenoch is badly lacking.

Start with that contest from a week ago. For many, the standout fact of the byelection to replace Andy Burnham as mayor of Greater Manchester was that Reform came a very poor second, taking just 21% of the vote to Labour’s 47%. It was indeed a crushing defeat for Nigel Farage’s party, which a matter of weeks earlier had talked up its chances of winning the mayoralty.

But run your finger further down the vote tally until it finally reaches the Conservative candidate on a mere 7.7%. In all the previous mayoral contests in Greater Manchester, the Tories were in second place. This time they were fifth, behind Restore Britain, a party of the hard right that has become home to all manner of racists and white supremacists.

A Tory result that bad among such a large electorate suggests not merely that Badenoch is making slow progress, but that she is moving her party backwards. When it comes to challenging Labour, other parties are either level with the Conservatives or ahead of them. In that context, it seems an undeserved compliment to call Kemi Badenoch the leader of the opposition.

Her........

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