Kemi Badenoch’s decision not to appoint a deputy when she assembled her frontbench last November raised eyebrows in Westminster. The Conservative leader simply declined the opportunity to vault some loyal operator or appease an erstwhile rival.
The rationale, according to a briefing secured by the Express newspaper, concerned deputy prime minister’s questions (DPMQs) — and a plot to “wrong-foot” Angela Rayner. Commons convention dictates that when the prime minister is otherwise engaged, on some foreign jaunt with fellow G7 leaders for instance, the opposition should mirror the government in sending out a senior subordinate.
Badenoch, deliberately deputy-less, has chosen to pick from a rotating roster of top Tories. But the available field is narrower than her frontbench suggests.
The Conservative leader would not pick an Edward Argar (shadow health secretary) or a Gareth Bacon (shadow transport) — their low profiles make them unsuited to the occasion. Nor is she likely to select Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, who has generated his own spotlight this parliament.
It’s easy to see how Badenoch’s no-deputy gambit could get rather awkward: can she continue to overlook her most effective, and ambitious, shadow cabinet colleague?
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Alex Burghart stood in late last year on Badenoch’s behalf. As one of the Tory leader’s trusty lieutenants, his performance was not interpreted as an audition; the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster remains the closest thing Badenoch has to a de facto deputy.
Today was the turn of Chris Philp. There were some guessing games in the lobby yesterday afternoon as to which shadow minister Badenoch might select to scrutinise Rayner in her stead. The shadow home secretary, given the nature of the news agenda, was the obvious pick.
Philp is a curious commons performer. His delivery style lends itself to caricature, and self-parody. Every word is wrestled from deep inside of him and forced into the open with breathless fury.
Philp favours brute force over finesse; his contributions are punchy but not always convincing.
The physicality of his delivery projects an enthusiasm for the cut and thrust of politics. But the best commons performers make it all look effortless. Philp’s style, stern and a bit shouty, looks unmistakably effortful.
The shadow home secretary began by referencing the press conference he conducted yesterday, alongside Badenoch, on the grooming gangs scandal. He spoke of the conversations he had with victims and their families in a lengthy first question.
Philp said victims believed the scandal had been “covered up” by the authorities and maintained that their confidence in the inquiry, announced in response to Louise Casey’s landmark report, is paramount.
He told the House: “The survivors told us they will only have confidence in an inquiry if it is independently led, has full statutory powers, covers all 50 towns affected including Bradford, if those who covered this up are prosecuted, if foreign perpetrators are all deported, if survivors are closely involved and if it is set up before the summer recess.
“Can the deputy prime minister give the survivors and their families those assurances?”
Philp’s ask that all “foreign perpetrators [should be] deported” was the most obviously political element in an otherwise constructive-sounding question. The shadow home secretary would draw further connections between immigration and grooming gangs later in his line of inquiry.
Rayner responded to the tone of Philp’s inaugural question, rather than its substance. She “thanked” the shadow home secretary for his approach and for putting survivors “at the heart of his question”.
The deputy PM added: “I think it is absolutely right that we all look at what has happened over the last couple of decades, the countless reports that we have had and we look to implement that.
“He is absolutely right to also talk about the confidence people must have in that independent inquiry.”
Philp’s follow-up scuppered any pretence of consensus. He accused Starmer of “smearing” campaigners as he repeated the defective Conservative recollection of the PM’s remarks in January.
Philp said Starmer had “smeared campaigners as jumping on, quote, ‘a far-right bandwagon’”. (The prime minister’s comments in January were directed at “politicians”).
The shadow home secretary added: “Standing up for rape victims is not far-right. So will the deputy prime minister apologise for what the prime minister said?”
Rayner leapt to the PM’s defence. Keir Starmer “did not just raise issues but acted on them”, she said, “he brought the first prosecutions against grooming gangs, called for action to address ethnicity issues in 2012 and [Philp] will know that the data the previous government collected was inaccurate and not complete.”
On the PM’s remarks in January, Rayner added: “The prime minister made those comments specifically about Tory ministers who sat for years in the government and did absolutely nothing about this scandal.”
For his third question, Philp noted that asylum seekers had been identified as some of the perpetrators in the grooming gangs scandal. And so he turned to another area of his home affairs brief and asked the deputy prime minister if she “now accepts that the small boats crisis is a crisis of public safety as well as a border crisis.”
Rayner responded that Philp, a former policing minister, “was the man at the heart of the Home Office when immigration soared” — adding that it was the Conservative Party that “lost control of our borders” and spent “£700 million of taxpayers money on persuading just four volunteers to be removed to Rwanda”.
Philp, contrary to Rayner’s insinuation, is not ashamed of the Rwanda deportation scheme. He cited the scheme repeatedly across his latter four questions as evidence that the Conservative Party had a plan for thwarting Channel crossings. The stance collides directly with a whole host of Labour attack lines, which Rayner dutifully voiced.
For years now, the Rwanda scheme has been seized upon by Labour spinners and spokespeople as a symbol of Conservative maladministration. The plan still operates as a proxy for attacks on the last government as incompetent and profligate.
Philp’s attachment to it sparks a series of political arguments that the Conservatives will not win. The Conservative Party’s confidence in the Rwanda scheme was, of course, belied by Sunak’s decision to call a summer election.
Indeed, after Rayner rubbished the Rwanda plan as ineffective, Philp was plain that the “scheme never started”. The Labour benches appeared especially bemused by that take. Rachel Reeves literally waved away the shadow home secretary’s contention.
Labour’s objections, heckled from sedentary positions, prompted the speaker to intervene. Philp was forced to repeat himself: “The Rwanda scheme never started.”
A party recently subjected to the toil of opposition tends to spend the first year of the new parliament downplaying and distancing itself from exposed aspects of its record. The shadow home secretary’s repeat references to the Rwanda scheme take the Conservatives in the wrong direction.
Rayner and Philp spent the final phase of their exchange trading idioms and pre-packaged soundbites. The shadow home secretary accused the deputy PM of possessing a “brass neck” and “a cheek”. Rayner said “£1 million a day [had been] spiffed up the wall” by the last administration “because they were so incompetent”. The government, she insisted, would take no lectures from the “Johnny-come-lately who couldn’t do anything when he was in office.”
Strutting and fretting, Philp’s sound and fury signified little of substance; but nor, in fairness, did Rayner’s answers. The unenlightening session will mean the shadow home secretary’s moment in the spotlight will be quickly forgotten.
Philp succeeded in failing to upstage his leader. But the questionable choreography does make you wonder if Badenoch would be better served by a fixed deputy.
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
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