Most of you have had experience of dealing with a 5-year-old just 10 days before Christmas. Either as an older sibling, or more likely a parent,  grandparent or relative.

Expectations are high, patience non-existent.

That was my weekend.

My son had a question. “Why isn’t it Christmas, right this second?” He wanted gifts galore, and questioned why he couldn’t just open them all now. All of it repeatedly delivered as if it were the most meek and reasonable request on earth.

I had necessary answers, when he gave me a second, as to why it isn’t Christmas, yet. I asked him to trust me that the presents would be glorious but he couldn’t have them now and I promised the earth if he’d meekly accept that!

Just. Be. Patient. Please.

The conversation within the Conservative Party has seemed a little like this recently, with questions, either whispered or broadcast, about – why haven’t we seen more of Kemi Badenoch? What does her ‘Renewal 2030” process look like and when does it start? Who is involved and how can we be involved? Where’s the policies? Why aren’t we talking to Reform? When are we getting stuck into the political fight rather than discussions about lunch?

Tories aren’t five-year-olds but they are starting to demand answers.

That jibe about lunch comes from an answer Badenoch gave in a pre-Christmas interview she gave to Michael Gove (perhaps no surprise) and Katy Balls, of the Spectator, in which they tried to get an answer:

“Badenoch may be keeping busy, but that doesn’t mean voters – or her MPs – should expect detailed policy announcements any time soon. ‘People keep saying “Where are your policies?”. I feel like I am going to be opening a restaurant in four years’ time and people are demanding to see the menu right now,’ she says. ‘Trying to get people to be patient, I think, is one of the big challenges. People want instant gratification.’

 We try again. If her leadership were a restaurant, does she at least have an inkling of the type of food it would serve? ‘There’ll be lots of red meat,’ she says.”

 There’s a lot of sense in not rushing the policy platform now.

Let’s not forget Starmer, as it turns out, revealed precious little of what was on his menu, even in an election campaign, and the thin gruel he ended up serving to pensioners, farmers, businesses and some victims of crime was only hastily chalked up on the blackboard, after their restaurant opened. It remains to be seen if they wipe any of it off.

But unlike Starmer’s run for government, the Conservatives cannot just wait for Labour to be bad at it and stay bad at it. The Tories are the one’s who’ll need a new offer that energises and convinces that Labour were not the change they promised.

Political patience may be a virtue, it may make some sense, but equally with three separate political clocks ticking, it’s making Tories nervous. In six months there are local elections that in 2021 saw a good Conservative result. Next May, whether we like it or not, the media will frame these local elections as a national judgement on the Labour Government, a measurement of the challenge from Reform, and a credibility test of Kemi Badenoch as leader.

Next year the fortune of the Conservatives in Wales will also be picked over in the run up to elections there in 2026. If Reform make a big showing, on the back of a good enough one in English locals, again the judgements will come, even harder.

It’s been five months since the General Election hammering, and six weeks since a new leader of the Conservative Party was declared. It’s perfectly arguable those wanting more now, are running ahead of themselves. It’s perfectly arguable that some of those asking for more now, are doing so because they don’t (and never did) want this leader to succeed, but you really don’t sort out the issues raised by such a defeat in just six weeks – or six months.

However, if people convince themselves they are not seeing or hearing what it is they are eager for, they worry the cause they support will be treated as irrelevant. Look how eager Reform’s leadership and voters are to tell anyone who’s a Conservative, “it’s already over, you should leave”. Look how Starmer points the finger at PMQs and says the Right Honourable lady “has no ideas.”

Conservatives shouldn’t fall for any of that goading, but I do understand why so many Tories keep asking me: “so why aren’t we hearing what we will be doing to fight back?” They don’t want to be spectators.

Their concern is predicated on the fact that without any sense of what’s new, and what will be new, the continued attack will be the one trotted out since July: you haven’t changed, you can’t change and everything before was your fault. If I was in one of the other parties, I’d do the same. Why not, it keeps Conservatives stuck in the starting blocks?

There’s a sense across parts of the Conservative party that what they really want for Christmas is some scent, a morsel, of that “red meat” Badenoch referred to. They’d like that flavour delivered fresh, now, so they can go into the new year being both patient and empowered, but with a taste of the possible.

“Trust me, I’ve got this” is generally the sort of thing leaders need to have the iron will to say to their party and expect them to accept it. However right now it’s a real gamble without some judicious, carefully rationed interventions to act as proof points.

It’s the politics of the pre-Christmas expectation management I mentioned: ”No you can’t have all the presents now, but they are coming. I have drawn up a list, we are busy working on exactly this stuff you are asking about, and very soon we’ll be doing x, y and z to tell you how you can be part of this process.” Inform them of the journey to come.

After a tumultuous year, everyone in politics (certainly not just Tories) and possibly everyone in the country, is desperately looking forward to a bit of time to focus on their family or friends well away from the battles of Westminster, Whitehall or town hall.

However Badenoch and her team might find that a clever surprise, handed out to their troops, that goes some way to ensure their patience and engagement, might be just the political present they needed, and also rewards the giver of the gift.

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