If the worst job in British politics is leader of his majesty’s loyal opposition, nobody told Kemi Badenoch. Since becoming Conservative leader in 2024, months after the party’s worst election defeat, Badenoch has often had to put up with being eclipsed by Nigel Farage and his hard-right Reform UK. Her success in battling that is impressive.

The Tory crisis seemed existential earlier this year. A flood of top lawmakers defected to Farage and his anti-migrant party, as did voters in local elections. Even today, the Conservatives are only sometimes polling ahead of the scandal-hit Reform. Badenoch’s personal ratings are hardly glowing at a net figure of between -12 and -15, well behind Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

Yet watch Badenoch speaking in the House of Commons or elsewhere. She’s clearly enjoying herself, chuckling as a zinger lands. Opposition isn’t torture for her as it was for many predecessors. Appearing to have fun is a quality she shares with Burnham, one that shouldn’t be underestimated.

The former PM Keir Starmer was a solid type whose Eeyore-like public persona depressed the nation’s already sagging spirits. Just as Burnham’s “good vibes” have boosted Labour, Badenoch’s spiky theatrics have helped arrest her party’s alarming decline.

The obvious comparison to Badenoch from recent history is William Hague, who also became Tory leader and head of the opposition after an electoral trouncing — to Labour’s Tony Blair in 1997. A surprisingly funny performer at the Commons despatch box, he nevertheless seemed dwarfed by the task of clawing his party back into the game. Next up was Iain Duncan Smith, who just shrank.

It wasn’t until David Cameron took the Tory leadership that they became electable again. An old Etonian who oozed patrician self-assurance, he was assisted by only having to face off against Blair’s politically hapless successor, Gordon Brown. With Starmer gone, Badenoch is not so lucky, yet she’s clearly another politician comfortable in her own skin.

She seems most similar to Margaret Thatcher, who led the Conservative opposition from 1975 until becoming PM four years later. This is good and bad. Like Thatcher, Badenoch can pick unnecessary fights, though she has a few decent wins under her belt. Bridget Phillipson, the former Labour education secretary, wore a T-shirt printed with one of her verbal attacks: “Spiteful class warrior.”Ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves never really recovered from a defenestration by the Tory leader during last year’s budget debate.

Badenoch is ruthless within her party, too. She has refused to allow the moderate former Defense Secretary Grant Shapps to run under the Conservative banner at the next election and has imposed candidate loyalty tests, demanding they sign up to overly hardline policies on net zero and human rights.

Sometimes she is brave, effectively calling out Reform for its racism. Other times she comes across as rude. How this plays out against Burnham’s sunnier shtick will be fascinating. She portrays him as a lightweight, a people pleaser, unable to make the difficult decisions. The PM’s Labour conference speech made no mention at all of his political rivals.

Badenoch’s punchiness is making a mark. In YouGov polling this summer, “strong” and “intelligent” were the most common words used by respondents to describe her, although “nasty” and “mean” weren’t far behind. People I talk to in business and politics are warming to her. Her party loves her. At the Tory conference this month, there was none of the usual backbiting about the leader.

Burnham and Badenoch, in their different ways, are more attractive than their predecessors because of an apparent authenticity. They’re not constantly scared about how they’ll be perceived. Compared with the 2024 election debates between Starmer and then Tory PM Rishi Sunak, two of the most wooden figures to serve in frontline politics, this pair can speak human.

But as Badenoch would doubtless ask of Burnham, where’s the meat? If she really wants to pull her party up in the popularity stakes, she’ll need to carry that authenticity through into her policies.

Her contest with Farage on who could have the harshest immigration views was ill-judged, and it’s encouraging that she has changed tack on the ugly ethno-nationalist element of right-wing politics. She spoke of her own Black British identity in her conference speech, condemning Reform for provoking a “debate [over] whether my mixed-race children are English.”She needs to get more real on the economy as well. The Tories’ strongest line of attack should be Labour’s fiscal incontinence, and of any government failure to get on top of spending or of adding to the UK’s crippling debt burden.

Sadly, she has been persuaded by party apparatchiks that she needs to shore up the Tories’ wealthy core vote, particularly in constituencies where the main opponents are the centrist Liberal Democrats. So she has offered a grab bag of sweeteners to the people who often least need them: free childcare for all, inheritance-tax breaks and refusing to back Burnham’s sensible promise to reform the gold-plated protections on state pensions.

Even Farage has labeled her “Kensington Kemi,” after the well-heeled west London neighborhood. More serious, the lack of clarity over how her plans would be paid for means the Conservatives’ offering on the economy is as suspect as Labour’s pledge to keep borrowing and taxes down while allowing public spending to spiral.

If Badenoch really wants to do authentic, or be a proper heir to Thatcher, far better to go back to a recognizably Conservative mission with the No.1 aim of stability and trust on the economy. Then she might also have a decent chance of enjoying life as a future prime minister.