No amount of sliding in the polls can shake Kemi Badenoch’s self-belief – or alter her party’s direction | Andy Beckett

Two years in to her leadership, Badenoch continues to take the Tories ever-rightwards, into comfort-zone Conservatism What happens to a political leader who is too sure of themself? Sometimes, huge confidence is a very useful, self-fulfilling quality: persuading party colleagues, activists, donors and voters that more can be achieved than is usually thought possible. Such utter conviction can keep everyone believing while the actual practicalities of a political project are worked out. Yet w