A few months ago, Kemi Badenoch, 45, commended JD Vance for “dropping some truth bombs”. What possesses an aspiring UK prime minister to speak like a teenage YouTube provocateur in a Texas basement? Badenoch is older than Tony Blair and David Cameron were when they entered Number 10. If there is one thing to be said in defence of her tone, it is this: the substance was worse.
Vance had all but endorsed the German hard right on German soil on the eve of a federal election there. He cited curbs on free speech as the real threat to Europe while Ukrainians died under (literal) bombs. If this is Badenoch’s account of truth, she deserves electoral rebuke that goes beyond the local elections on Thursday.
Events in Canada suggest it will come in time. US-worship outside the US used to be merely weird. It now seems a political liability. The fate of Canada’s Conservatives, who have just lost a near-unlosable election, in part through association with Donald Trump, should spook their sibling party in the UK.