The Conservative leadership is imitating the political strategy that catapulted Donald Trump back to the White House, with a sustained focus on “new media” platforms — in favour of the Westminster studios Kemi Badenoch famously abhors.
The Tory leader, who disdains SW1-based “old media” duties, marked her 100-day milestone in the role with a wide-ranging interview on the podcast “Triggernometry”. On the show, hosted by commentator double act Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster, Badenoch was asked about the threat posed to the Conservative Party by Reform UK; immigration, both legal and illegal; net zero; and Britain’s general decline among other topics.
Badenoch’s reflections received a mixed reaction from Triggernometry’s regular viewers. At the time of writing, the over one hour-long interview had around 3,700 likes on YouTube — with circa 2,600, mainly scathing, comments. It’s a “ratio” that reflects viewer disquiet. “I hope you read this Kemi”, one representative commenter remarks. “Never again should your party or Labour be anywhere near power”. Another reads: “I won’t be voting for her, or conservative [sic] ever again”.
The reaction, to some extent, reflects the scale of the challenge Badenoch faces if she is to repair trust in the Conservative Party over the coming years. But perhaps the backlash justifies the ostensible strategy: to re-engage with and persuade right-wing critics. Donald Trump, of course, found significant success with a similar approach throughout the 2024 US presidential election. During the race for the White House, Trump sat down with a rolling roster of podcasters, streamers and vloggers — on the advice of Baron, his 18-year-old son.
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Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) is talking up the Trump parallels. In an email to mark Badenoch’s first 100 days as leader, party chair Nigel Huddleston informed members: “As we also saw in the USA, engagement with the non-traditional media outlets, such as podcasts, is vital to connecting with younger, more online audiences.
“In November Kemi went on Honestly, with Bari Weiss. She spoke about her background, why she joined the Conservatives and how she wants to do politics differently.
“On Sunday Kemi appeared on TRIGGERnometry. She elaborated on how we fix our broken immigration system and she spoke about net zero and the civil service.”
Huddleston added: “There’s a lot we can learn from our sister parties around the world. Particularly those who’ve recently taken their party from opposition into Government.”
There are, however, significant differences between Badenoch’s embrace of online platforms and that which powered Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. The most obvious is this: Trump, a former president, was treated to mainly softball questions by friendly “new media” stars — individuals like Joe Rogan, Spotify’s most listened to podcaster; Logan Paul, the YouTuber-turned-wrestler; and Theo Von, a comedian.
While far from antagonistic, Badenoch’s appearance on Triggernometry was characterised by genuinely tough questions — framed from a right-wing perspective — about the Conservative Party’s failure in office. The audience, as we have established, was a largely unfriendly one. Many will not have voted for the Conservatives at the last election, some might have moved to Reform since. Ultimately, Badenoch’s 3,700 “like” total compares to just under 10,000 for a video (admittedly released last week) discussing grooming gangs with GB News investigative journalist Charlie Peters.
New media in Britain is also not nearly as far evolved as in the United States — in terms of both the audience count and, perhaps more significantly, its fusion of politics and entertainment. Triggernometry is a politics podcast, listened to mostly by individuals who agree with it. The Joe Rogan Experience does not concern itself with genre, and is listened to by a more ideologically diverse audience.
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In short, Trump’s embrace of new media was a direct gateway to undecided, perhaps even under-engaged, (mainly male) voters. Badenoch’s appearance on Triggernometry does not offer the same kind of electoral-political opportunity. Triggernometry’s average viewer is likely extremely engaged and trenchantly anti-Tory.
Badenoch’s new media strategy does, however, come with significant risks. One common criticism of the Conservative leader is that her engagement with online political spaces, on Elon Musk’s X for instance, distorts her politics.
Badenoch’s recent appearances at prime minister’s questions have been characterised by the deployment of tropes and talking points familiar in Online Right fora. She has suggested the prime minister committed a “cover up” over the grooming gangs scandal — and in the session last week blasted “eco-nutters” together with the “immoral surrender” of the Chagos Islands. There was also a “bend the knee” reference, which was surely lost on the average viewer.
The danger for Badenoch is as follows: her engagement with a right wing cultural space that has yet to fully interact with mainstream opinion risks drawing the Conservative Party away from the median voter.
In any case, this is territory that is monopolised — in a party-political sense — by Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Does Badenoch really believe she can outcompete Farage in a battle for the affections of the Very Online Right? Perhaps more pertinently, is this battle worth risking the alienation of existing as well as potential voters, who are attracted to outfits to Badenoch’s left?
The Liberal Democrats, lest Badenoch forgets, exist. The Conservative Party lost 59 seats to them in England in 2024. Indeed, a YouGov poll this week revealed that while Badenoch and Farage are level (22 per cent) on the measure of “who would make the better prime minister”, the Conservative leader trails Ed Davey. In a head-to-head match-up, the Lib Dem leader is rated as the better PM by 26 per cent. Just 17 per cent prefer Badenoch.
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Badenoch risks tumbling down an ideological rabbit hole in a desperate bid to court voters who are irretrievably, vehemently anti-Conservative. The Tory leader’s praise for the US administration’s DOGE, or Department of Government Efficiency, initiative in a new long-form podcast for the Daily Telegraph could well represent a further manifestation of this phenomenon.
Speaking to the Daily T, Badenoch backed a British version of Elon Musk’s DOGE and its slash-and-burn cost-cutting model. She said: “The policy commission work which we’re going to be carrying out is going to do lots of deep thinking about all of this.
“We have to do something like DOGE — probably won’t call it that. We have to have a revolution on this.”
According to a recent Ipsos survey, 63 per cent of Britons hold an unfavourable view of Musk — compared to 17 per cent who hold a favourable one. This reality, of course, will not be reflected in Badenoch’s X feed.
The Tory leader’s comments, if DOGE continues to be caught up in controversy, could represent a remarkable hostage to fortune. At the very least, it looks like a gamble to lavish praise — without a hint of caveat — on an unpopular tech billionaire spearheading a controversial scheme at the command of an unpopular president. (Three in five Britons, Ipsos note, hold an unfavourable view of Trump).
These conclusions beg further questions of Badenoch’s strategy as Conservative leader, with both insiders and outsiders noting her slow, buffering start. After all, Badenoch continues to be a big asset for her political opponents — all of them in fact, from Nigel Farage to Keir Starmer through to Ed Davey.
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