Leading the Conservative Party in opposition is almost the hardest job in politics. First, you have to watch in frustration as the government controls the agenda. They can act. You can only comment. But the real problem is exasperation, from your own party. Conservatives believe that they are the true national party. As such, they should almost always be in government. If they are exiled from power, they look for someone to blame: their leader.
When Kemi Badenoch took over, the grumbling started almost immediately. Robert Jenrick waited for barely five minutes before he started on manoeuvres, a process which continued until he joined Reform. This was welcomed, by most of his fellow Tories.
But serious people were also unhappy. There were complaints that the Leader was not working hard enough, and where were the policies? It is greatly to Mrs Badenoch's credit that she brushed all that aside. As I have written before, if she had any doubts about her wisdom in taking on the leadership at such an early age, she confided them to her pillow or her husband: no-one else.
She had a strategy. Do not rush into policy-making, which might result in commitments that would later have to be unscrambled. Think everything through, and do not launch a major attack until you can see the reds of their eyes. She stuck to all that. The commentariat began to notice and began to take her seriously. Winning the next Election is a daunting task. Mount Psephos is high and steep, and Reform is a nuisance. Nigel Farage is the Ross Perot of British politics. But Kemi's party is united behind her, to a significantly greater extent than it was when Margaret Thatcher led the opposition.
She was also fortunate in Keir Starmer. Although poor old Stumbler is not a bad man, he came across as dreary, peevish, wooden and joyless. By the end she was regularly slaughtering him at the Despatch Box, something Mrs T never succeeded in doing when up against Jim Callaghan. In those days, when a much greater degree of sexism was permitted, he would adopt a patronising, world-weary tone. These may not have been the actual words, but they were the body language: 'There, there, you silly woman, you're getting over-excited again. I've told you not to, so why don't you listen and leave these important matters to those who understand them?' In the House, that often worked, just as Kemi's tactics almost always left Starmer stumbling.
Yet as Chris Patten often says, the trouble with politics is that you will take a trick in hearts, and then find that spades have suddenly become trumps. The methods that have served her well against Sir Keir will not work against Andy Burnham. Quick and media-savvy, he will be harder to disconcert. He is good at cheering people up, when many of them feel in need of some pre-Christmas wassail.
But wassail is not enough. If Mr Burnham has deluded himself into believing otherwise, he is in for a rapid disillusion. He has spent his first few days on goodies and gimmicks. So far, the hard questions have been evaded. Is this because he has no answers, or because he does not yet see the need for any? Although one suspects that he will put off the difficult decisions for as long as possible, that will be a matter of weeks, not months. Then crunches will come.
When they do, Kemi would be wise to appear to offer help. If the PM is ready to cut the welfare bill, restrain all other forms of government spending and rush to cut energy costs by exploiting the North Sea, she should be ready to support him. That would make her sound statesman-like - and it is unlikely that he will take up her offer.
Now, she has another difficulty, which is in many ways a consequence of her success. Some Tories of consequence, including my old friend and colleague Matthew Parris, believe that she is being too hard on centrist voters who might consider voting Tory. But if they are put off by a hard line on the European Convention on Human Rights and Net Zero, they might consider voting Lib Dem.
I am a bit sceptical. Over the years, it has never been clear what Lib Dems actually believe. They often seem to be the spittoon party: the none of the aboves. Undoubtedly, some of them are remainers, or should that be remoaners? Most of the EU-hicans are now safely corralled in the House of Lords, though there is some plaintive moaning in the Home Counties. But most sensible people now recognise that reversing Brexit is about as likely as reviving the corn laws. As for net zero, we have to find a way of bringing down energy costs to job creation levels. There are methods of simultaneously protecting the environment and the British economy. It is to be hoped that one of the cleverest people in public life, Matt Ridley, is now guiding the opposition as to how to achieve that. But net zero in its present form is crazy.
So is the ECHR. The purpose of British law is to protect the lives and liberties of His Majesty's subjects, as well as those of every law-abiding foreigner resident in these islands. A foreign law administered in a foreign court can be of no help. In England - Scotland is different, as so often - we have the Common law, that glorious judicial, political and moral legacy: an adornment of English civilisation. John Adams, the Second President of the USA, regarded it as almost divinely-inspired, and there are Common law jurisdictions in the USA, and Australia.
It is worth noting that whatever view one takes of the abolition of the death penalty, easier abortion, ditto divorce and the legalisation of homosexual acts, these were the result of legislation - associated with Roy Jenkins - and passed through our Parliament. None of that needed the ECHR. It may be that countries with shallower roots in legal stability, such as Belarus and France, do require external validation. That is up to them. We do not.
Kemi Badenoch is right to tell her party that there are some crucial issues on which she will fight the next Election as a matter of party policy and that, in President Lincoln's words, a house divided cannot stand. There are limits. It seems cruel to deny Grant Shapps the chance to try to become a candidate. After all, he used to be Party Chairman. If Mrs Badenoch feels that she still has to prove her toughness, she is being unnecessarily modest.
There was a time when Labour was the party of intellectuals. Under Margaret Thatcher, that baton was passed to the Tories, where it remains. It should be possible for all Tories to participate in debate without descending into factionalism, always accepting the need for loyalty, and above all, to prepare to win an election. In that task, we could profitably descend from intellectualism into a Bill Clinton slogan: 'It's the economy, stupid.' That is the battleground on which Tories will win, or lose.