Kemi Badenoch’s declaration that the upcoming local elections will be “very, very difficult” for the Conservatives isn’t just a warning – it’s a textbook manoeuvre from the political comms playbook.
This is expectation management, not policy. A soft-landing. A controlled crash.
“The Tories’ stock is so low that in some ways Kemi has almost nothing to lose in these elections,” says Gregor Cubie, strategy director at crisis PR firm Borkowski.
“But she has a relatively low profile and a limited platform for a leader of the opposition, so she should be using any airtime she gets to come out swinging against Labour and Reform instead of naval-gazing.”
Rehearsing the loss
That’s the problem. The public may not be paying close attention, but insiders certainly are. This isn’t leadership – it’s a leader rehearsing the loss before the result. Frame the fall before you hit the ground and you can walk away looking composed – even strategic. Welcome to the political dark arts of narrative shaping.
The Conservative Party is circling just 21% in the polls, now trailing behind both Labour and Reform UK – a surreal fall from grace for the party that once called itself the natural party of government. But Badenoch knows the optics. Better to own the defeat before it happens than look blindsided on May 2nd.
“This is going to be hard,” Badenoch has declared – but the subtext reads: Don’t blame me when it is.
In classic PR terms, this is the pre-emptive strike. “You can’t manage expectations that are already at rock bottom.” Gregor said.
All she’s really doing here is clearing the runway for excuses: a short tenure, party baggage and ‘protest votes.’
She’s building a cushion, trying to make the pain feel familiar before it even arrives. So when the results inevitably disappoint, her allies can say: She told us it would be bad. Let’s focus on the rebuild.
Risk of gloomy prophesy becoming reality
But there’s a catch. Badenoch’s low media visibility and hesitance to own the narrative don’t help her look like a leader in control of her message or her party. For every smart framing attempt, there’s a gaffe, a missed moment, a clunky headline like “lunch is for wimps.”
“The danger,” Cubie notes, “is being so explicit that your party’s going to get a hiding just ends up losing you even more votes. Another way of framing the likely Tory wipe-out is that she’s rebuilding from scratch – and it’s too early to see the impact – but the way she’s going about it risks draining morale further.”
Because in politics, you can lose power – but if you lose purpose, you’re in freefall. And while Badenoch may be trying to turn a car crash into a documentary, the cameras are still rolling, and the public is already tuning out.
