BORIS JOHNSON: Kemi’s full of bounce and zip. If anyone can rebuild the electoral coalition that won the Tories power in 2019, she can

I listened to the BBC and absorbed the teachings of Sir John Curtice and obviously did as much analysis as I could of the local elections. My conclusion from an ardent Conservative’s perspective: There’s still everything to play for.

We have three years until the next election and polls show we already have the most popular party leader. Kemi Badenoch had a good season. It looks fresher and more full of bounce and bounce than its rivals.

He speaks in complete, clear and unpremeditated sentences. If you can, watch the video of the moment he encountered a trickster in Billericay. He was upset with him about his anti-Semitism and principled stance against Israel, and Kemi blasted the ball into the net so hard that it nearly flew down his opponent’s throat.

He has a fearlessness and knowledge of his own mind that is enjoyable to watch, and is a welcome tonic compared to the Prime Minister’s stuttering guttural machine language. At the time of this writing, he appears to have performed better at the polls than expected.

By pointing to victories in Westminster and Wandsworth, the Conservatives can show they still have a voter base among the professional middle classes. We also managed to withstand the strong challenges of the Reformation in areas such as Harlow and Bexley. I won’t exaggerate this, but this is the essence of the grand coalition that brought the Conservatives to power in 2019. It can be rebuilt.

The opportunity is there because Starmer is getting so terrible that Labor recorded its worst ever election result: 16 per cent! Starmer was constantly being cited on the doorstep as the main reason people refused to vote Labour. We will hear a lot of debate over the next few weeks about whether Labor MPs should throw him out.

Frankly, they face a very difficult dilemma. If enough of them move against him or the Cabinet rebels, they can take their frozen fingers off the wheel. So what’s the plan? Labor MPs do not have a replacement around whom the party can unite. It’s not clear that Angela Rayner or Ed Miliband would be significantly more popular with voters. Wes Streeting is disliked by the larger left wing of the party. Andy Burnham isn’t even in parliament.

Labor MPs know that if they sideline Starmer and embark on a messy run in a leadership contest, then they risk the same impeachment (chaos) that is currently their best and most effective line of attack against the serial royalist Conservatives. So it looks increasingly likely that they will simply bottle it up and Starmer will stagger on.

But frankly it’s getting to the stage where it no longer matters whether they replace their leaders or not. Starmer has now done so much damage that the Labor position may not be reversible.

Yesterday morning he appeared to give a typical android press conference and said that he would not ‘step down’ as prime minister, in other words, he would not resign. He then tried to explain the route.

It is unlikely that all medium-term governments will claim that local election results were difficult, because this is clearly not true. Just look at the local results from May 2021, when the mid-term Conservative Party defeated Labor and won the Hartlepool by-election.

So Starmer had a different explanation. He said the reason Labor was so unpopular was because people felt they had not yet done enough to transform the country. ‘People have sent a message about the pace of change,’ he said.

According to Starmer, people want Labor to move faster in changing the country; but frankly I think he’s being very modest about his accomplishments. He has only been in power for two years and is well on his way to changing this country beyond recognition. It turns it into a complete basket case.

He is changing the face of the British countryside with his cruelty to farmers and the closing of two pubs every day.

It seriously damaged the education system, abandoned key Tory reforms and became the first government in Europe to tax schools, so that around 100 schools closed and taxpayers now had to educate thousands of former fee-paying children.

It has damaged Britain’s global standing so that Americans no longer believe we are a reliable ally, Mauritians think we are idiots and the EU thinks we will soon be paying them billions of dollars for the privilege of undemocratically submitting to annoying and job-destroying regulations.

Kemi celebrates the Conservatives taking back Westminster council. Labor MPs know if they sideline Starmer they risk the same ‘chaos’ that is currently their best line of attack against the Conservatives

Both Reform and the Greens suffer from the narrowness of their agendas. Boris Johnson thinks all problems could easily be solved if Reformers got tougher on immigrants

First of all, it is rapidly changing the entire moral climate of the country; So we are turning into a bloated, welfarist, work-from-home culture where shoplifting is epidemic, rapists and other serious criminals roam the streets, and taxes are now so high – the highest they have ever been – that large numbers of talented people are actually fleeing Britain in a brain drain.

Dear Keir: The pace of change is extraordinary and the situation is only getting worse. Sooner or later a general election will have to be held, and at that moment people will think hard about the new government.

The era of two-party politics is over, according to Sir John Curtice, who seems as venerable as David Attenborough. Maybe; but the British people are creatures of habit and, as Disraeli said, they do not like coalitions.

The two rebel parties – Reform and the Greens – suffer, in my opinion, from the narrowness of their agenda: they believe, one way or another, that the best way to get elected in this country is to find a minority group and blame them for the ills of the people.

Reformers think all the problems can be solved if we act tougher on immigrants; The Greens, on the other hand, think we should be tougher on billionaires and Jews. I find both manifestos demoralizing and completely inadequate.

I certainly think we could be much tougher on illegal immigrants and use Brexit powers to bring back the Rwanda scheme, for example. But I don’t think any of the rebels (Greens or Reform) have a credible economic programme.

Reform is everywhere: too scared to promise basic welfare cuts and too incompetent to cut spending wherever they actually run local government. On the contrary, Reform councils are increasing council tax at a pathetic rate.

The Greens are an anti-capitalist nightmare.

This is where the Conservatives always have the advantage and where Kemi can score. He built a fan club and the right to a hearing with his excellent performances in Parliament. Now he must ensure, through relentless repetition, that the Tories are seen as the standard-bearers of the rebellion against Labour’s economic disaster.

The reform did well yesterday, but not as well as expected. The Conservative Party exceeded expectations. The gap is closing. It won’t be easy, but Kemi can do it.