And so, with the happy inevitability of a tax bill, we approach the end of the Conservative leadership contest. To mark the occasion, GB News was hosting a not-debate.

“Who will win the hearts of the nation?” the host, Christopher “Chopper” Hope asked, possibly under the impression that he was hosting Strictly. Neither Kemi Badenoch nor Robert Jenrick has managed to win the hearts of more than a third of Tory MPs, let alone the rest of us.

It was time, he said, for the Conservatives to have huge arguments about Europe and make impossible promises on immigration

The format was consecutive question-and-answer sessions. Jenrick won the coin toss and went first. “When I was Minister for Immigration, I saw things that made me angry,” he opened. We remembered: cartoon murals in a centre for child refugees. He is pitching for the votes of people who think the Conservatives are the Not-Nasty-Enough Party.

Jenrick talks very slowly, pausing every couple of words for emphasis, like a man selling funeral insurance on daytime TV. “It begins. By ensuring. That we end. The drama. We end. The excuses.” There are rumours that you will get a free Parker pen simply for enquiring about his campaign.

His solution to the Torypocalypse? “It involves. Fundamentally changing. This party.” It was time, he said, for the Conservatives to have huge arguments about Europe and make impossible promises on immigration. To my ears, this sounded less like fundamental change and more like fundamental continuation, but who am I to argue with a man who once argued that Boris Johnson could save the Tories?

He turned to the European Convention on Human Rights. “It’s Leave. Or Remain. And I’m For Leave.” There’s something fascinating about Jenrick’s nostalgia for the great days of Brexit, when parliament sat deadlocked night after night, ignoring the nation’s problems and debating in circles. He repeats this message everywhere he goes, so it must test well among party members. Perhaps they want to become a referendum reenactment society, spending their evenings sewing costumes just like people used to wear back in 2016, and then gathering on Sunday afternoons to faithfully recreating the Battle of the Malthouse Compromise.

He was challenged about his own record on immigration. “I’m as angry and frustrated about that as everyone else,” he replied, pulling on his hot dog suit. This wasn’t all he was angry about: he was frustrated that the Tories hadn’t built enough prisons, or houses, and that they’d opened negotiations on the Turks and Chagos Islands. It’s really impressive that he rose as far as he did, now we know he spent his whole time in office arguing against everything the government was doing.

“It would be good if we looked fresher and younger and more energetic as a party,” he said, and suddenly it became clear that he thinks of himself as a hip young gunslinger. I have high hopes that if he does win, he can be persuaded to go on a log flume at Thorpe Park.

When it was her turn, Kemi Badenoch said the leadership election “is about character, it is about principles”, which is a pretty clear indication of what she thinks of Jenrick. Where he spoke slowly, she was fast: she has so many opinions, and there is so little time to get them all out.

Who knows how representative the GB News audience was of the wider party, but she had won the hearts of the room

“Let’s not make the same mistake that the Labour Party made,” she warned. “Making lots of promises, waiting and hanging around until the other side lose. We can see where that’s got them.” Into government with a huge majority? Once again, we have to ask if Conservatives understand what happened in July.

What about the people in her department who’d accused her of bullying them, asked Hope. “The people who were causing the problems as the ones that I got out of the department,” she spat. “Of course they run to The Guardian to tell lies about me!” This wasn’t exactly a denial. “I don’t like fighting,” she said. “I don’t look for fights. But if someone brings a fight to Conservatives, I will fight for us.” A view often heard outside pubs on Saturday nights.

But she can be a peacemaker. “Donald Trump or Kamala Harris?” asked Hope. “I like both of them equally,” Badenoch replied, courageously.

What about arguments about colonialism? It was time to move on from the past, she said. “The British Empire ended the slave trade. We need to talk about that more.” From my admittedly limited viewing (this show) GB News talks about it once an hour.

What did she think of the present government’s single most popular policy, VAT on school fees? Removing it “is the very first thing I would do if I were prime minister”. Somewhere in Labour headquarters, a staffer smiled, and added a note to the file marked “2028 Election Poster Ideas”

And what about fox hunting? “This is not where the big crisis of our state is.” Quite right. It’s in not talking about the slave trade enough.

She was relaxed, but she could afford to be. When she’d finished, Hope asked if anyone had changed their mind about how they were going to vote. A smattering of hands went up. These are Tories, they’re not given to changing their minds. And they were, overwhelmingly, for Badenoch. Who knows how representative the GB News audience was of the wider party, but she had won the hearts of the room.