One of the things a leader of the opposition needs is a theory about why their party lost the last election. Tony Blair thought Labour had seemed anti-aspiration; David Cameron thought the Tories had seemed weird. Keir Starmer had, well, Jeremy Corbyn. Kemi Badenoch, it is becoming clear, has concluded that the voters are morons.

She walked into the House of Commons on Wednesday and took her seat next to Chris Philp, who turns out to be the Shadow Home Secretary. He has the air of a particularly angry stoat, one that spent all morning hunting a shrew only to lose it just before lunch. Such is his love of country that he was wearing Union Jack socks. And perhaps Union Jack underpants, too, though thankfully the press escaped that revelation.

It was clear from the moment the leader of the opposition stood up that she meant business. “Last week,” she began, and for a brief joyous moment we thought she might be about to open a debate about whether Boris Johnson had a criminal conviction, or had merely broken the law. Badenoch is entirely the kind of person who would follow you around trying to revive an argument you thought was over. 

But it wasn’t to be. Instead she had decided to revive the immigration row. Why, she asked, in all the prime minister’s milestones and missions, was immigration not a priority? 

Was this a wise line of attack? After all, just seven days earlier, Starmer had been keen to talk about immigration. Might he not have some attack lines of his own in his black folder? As it happened, he did. The Tories had run a “one nation experiment in open borders”. Is this fair? Not entirely. Does that matter? Not at all.

Farage and Tice at least know how and where they’ll be fighting the next election

Badenoch’s team had seen that answer coming, of course. They’re not idiots. Not like the voters. Hadn’t Starmer campaigned for free movement in the days of the hated European Union? Worse than that, hadn’t Starmer signed a letter opposing the deportation of a convicted criminal who went on to murder someone? “He was able to stay here and murder because people like this man campaigned against deporting criminals!” Badenoch declared. It was a brilliant argument, comprehensively demolishing whoever it was who had been in government in 2020 and had, according to the Conservative leader, allowed their good judgement to be swayed by letters from Labour MPs. (Might the history of the case have been more complicated than that? Possibly. Does that matter? You know this bit.)

As Starmer answered, Philp jeered: “You signed the letter!” He jabbed his finger upwards to make a point about small boat arrivals, but resembling someone trying to shove something into an especially tight space. Eventually the Speaker told him off, and he turned very pink, like a stoat caught misbehaving in public.

Still Badenoch kept it up. “He never answers questions!” she complained. Which is fair but also very much the idea at PMQs. Through all this, over her left shoulder, the Reform MPs were having the time of their lives. As the Conservative leader asked why immigration numbers had gone up, Richard Tice put his head in his hands. Nigel Farage pointed at the Tory benches. They at least know how and where they’ll be fighting the next election. 

Why, Badenoch asked, had Labour abandoned the policy of sending hundreds of millions of pounds — but no actual asylum seekers — to Rwanda? She didn’t put it quite like that, but it was still one of those questions that contains its own solution. She listed all the wicked things he had done in his lawyering days. 

She achieved this much: she seemed to have got under Starmer’s skin. “I was Director of Public Prosecutions for five years,” he replied. “Unlike anyone on the Conservative benches, for five years I was prosecuting hundreds of thousands of criminals.” His work had been commended by no less an authority than Theresa May! Having got that off his chest, he turned his attention to the Tories. “Not a sliver of remorse, not a hint of contrition,” he said. “It is like the arsonist complaining about the people who are trying to put the fire out.”

Badenoch looked pleased with how it had gone, but it’s hard to know what she was trying to achieve. If banging on about Rwanda and Starmer’s past didn’t work in July, why does she think it will work now, or in four years? Perhaps by then she hopes the idiot voters will have got it through their thick skulls. 

This is not to say, we should be clear, that Labour is immune to this kind of thinking. Outside the chamber, tractors were queued up Whitehall, blocking the traffic. Starmer was asked about their protest twice, and each time his reply was the same: the farmers don’t understand the Budget, and are the victims of “fearmongering” by the Conservatives. Faced with the possibility that you might have made a mistake, it’s always easier to tell yourself that the electorate is wrong.