QUENTIN LETTS: Words spat out of Mrs Badenoch like machine-gun bullets. Not wearing a helmet, I ducked for cover

Every month or so Kemi Badenoch delivers a weekday morning speech in London. Every month they need a bigger venue as more Tory supporters turn out to have a gawp at this tiny, trenchant figure. Mrs Badenoch is not from the ‘on the one hand, on the other hand’ approach to politics. Nor does she go in for Andy Burnham’s habit of making matey videos in first-class railway carriages. Did you see his latest? Shades of Jimmy Savile’s ‘this is the age of the train’ adverts.

Mrs Badenoch’s growing success may be proof of the old box-office adage that violence sells. If unsure about your plot (Tory revival) or cast (shadow cabinet), throw in some gore. As the film director Sam Peckinpah understood, viewers love that.

Some 400 souls turned out after breakfast on a wet Tuesday to see Mrs B in action at the Westminster HQ of the Institution of Civil Engineers. The architecture was neo-classical, heavy on gilt, chandeliers and Corinthian columns. In France they would try to set such a building on fire.

The Great Hall had room for another couple of hundred audience-members but this was a big improvement on Mrs Badenoch’s early days as Conservative leader. Her speeches back then used to draw tiny crowds.

She has developed into a watchable, which is to say bloodthirsty, performer. Various targets were biffed. Sam Peckinpah once directed a picture called ‘Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia’. At Badenoch matinees, likewise, it is hard to keep up with the body count.

She took her electric saw to Andy Burnham, John Healey, the French, Germany’s Chancellor (she did not expect Herr Merz to last long) and Tory MPs who defected to Reform. Liz Truss sustained a few glancing blows. So did former Tory leaders who raised taxes. A couple of female journalists were rash enough to put unhelpful questions in a snooty manner. Mrs Badenoch dealt with them. Stretcher bearers removed the corpses.

All this was done in little more than half an hour. Had Mrs Badenoch given herself longer, who knows what diplomatic incidents she could have ignited?

The warm-up speech was by the new shadow Chancellor, Andrew Griffith. Perhaps understandably, he has a twitchy manner. Working with Kemi must fray the nerves. Mr Griffith had a business career before he entered politics. He knows a lot about balance sheets but is less good at projecting a smooth manner. He has the furtive, high-pitched delivery of one of those expendable accountants you find in Mafia movies, the sort that is rubbed out in the penultimate reel. Might the same happen to Mr Griffith when his colleague Claire Coutinho returns from maternity leave?

The speech looked ahead to next week’s Budget and made the argument, with considerable force, for lower taxes and spending cuts. Mrs Badenoch pointed out that the extra spending she wanted on defence was ‘less than a third of the increase to welfare since Labour came to office’. She listed numerous taxes that should be cut. ‘Tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax,’ she said. The words spat out of her like machine-gun bullets. Not wearing a helmet, I ducked for cover.

She mocked Mr Burnham for wittering on about noise levels on trains when far more important matters demanded his attention. He was Prime Minister, for heaven’s sake, not a ticket inspector. An Oxbridge bluestocking from the Financial Times mentioned the European Union. Mrs B briskly observed that France was in flames and Germany could soon have another change of government. The bluestocking asked something else, about stockpiling domestic supplies. Mrs Badenoch witheringly told her the question was incomprehensible. A reporter from Sky was also given both barrels with a sawn-off shotgun.

The pace was relentless, the intellectual level intense. As cinematic entertainment, it worked. The audience left buzzing, bucked by the savagery. Perhaps this is how the Lab/Tory part of the next election will play: a folksy Scouser doing clips on TikTok versus a ferociously clever ankle-biter.