One opinion poll showing the Conservatives two points ahead of Reform — a single data point within the margin of error — has been enough for Kemi Badenoch to declare the Tory restoration is underway. This is the political equivalent of calling a coin flip a trend. The broader polling landscape hasn't moved, but the Tory leader's confidence has outrun the evidence by a comfortable margin. At PMQs, Badenoch reverted to her early-tenure habits: scattergun questions, conspiracy-theory-adjacent framing sourced from X, and zero sustained interrogation on a single subject. She accused Andy Burnham of being consistently wrong about everything, then walked into a trap on Russian interference in the Brexit referendum — an area where the MI5 director, Ken McCallum, had publicly confirmed that hostile state actors did attempt to influence both the 2016 referendum and the 2019 general election. Badenoch's insistence that McCallum had slapped the PM down was factually wrong, and Burnham corrected her with the actual record. Burnham's approach was strategically devastating precisely because it was low-temperature. He responded with kindness, reiterated the documented evidence of Russian bots spreading misinformation on social media, and noted that McCallum's actual message was that continuing to publicise the interference only served Russian interests. He then pointed out who had kept the story alive for a third day by raising it at PMQs: Badenoch herself. The irony was not subtle — the Tory leader was doing the Russians' work for free, while Nathan Gill, Reform's former leader in Wales, at least got paid for his. Badenoch's remaining questions were equally unproductive. She asked Burnham about the upcoming budget, apparently hoping the PM would preview fiscal policy two weeks early on the floor of the Commons. The question achieved nothing except making her look unprepared. She closed by complaining that Burnham was point-scoring rather than problem-solving — a line that lands poorly when your opponent has simply been answering your questions with facts. The Burnham dynamic matters structurally. His unanswered questions about involvement with Manchester City's owners remain a genuine vulnerability, but Badenoch isn't landing blows there because she isn't trying. An engaging openness and willingness to answer direct questions gives him a significant advantage at the dispatch box, especially against an opponent who treats preparation as beneath her. Elsewhere in Westminster, Dominic Cummings appeared before a Lords select committee on preventing rogue actors in No 10. His thesis — that Boris Johnson was right to give him free rein but no future PM should allow anyone else the same latitude — was characteristically self-serving. The committee failed to ask the obvious question: the simplest way to prevent a rogue adviser is to not appoint one. Cummings remains as deluded as he was during his year in Downing Street, but his influence is now effectively zero. The bigger picture is an opposition party that has mistaken one favourable poll for a strategic position. Badenoch's refusal to debate whether Brexit has done more harm than good — she shook her head when Burnham offered — reveals the Conservatives' core problem: they cannot defend their record and they cannot move past it. The party's approach to opposition remains reactive, underprepared, and built on narcissism rather than substance.
