As one of the most thankless roles in UK politics, your job is to hold the Government accountable without any Civil Service resources, contribute to every aspect of Parliamentary proceedings, and simultaneously find the capacity to plan for the next General Election. You need to do all of this while persuading the public your party has had long enough in the political wilderness and can be trusted again.

Even with all of this on her plate, Kemi Badenoch's main problem isn’t that her party is struggling with raising money, only has 121 MPs or Reform consistently polling at a similar level to the Tories. It’s that people just don’t care about what the Opposition has to say at this stage in the cycle – even more so when all eyes are currently on the world stage.

Worse still, on national security, Badenoch has little choice but to fall in line behind the PM – just as Starmer himself did over the outbreak of the pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine itself. It’s hard to find relevance while being responsible.

The Conservative leader has stated over and over how she won’t rush into making policies because it’s right for the Tories to do some deep thinking and reflecting on the past 15 years. But if the party doesn’t start saying something soon, events will quickly run away from them.

The local elections in May will be Badenoch’s first major test as Leader of the Opposition, but if people don’t know what her party stands for, how can she fend off assault from both left and right?

(Photo by Evening Standard)