Why Kemi Badenoch offers a hope with which Keir Starmer can never compete

Now the competition for leadership of the Conservative Party is over, the serious business of the HM opposition begins and it could not be more important. Whether Kemi Badenoch knows it or not she is now engaged in a fundamental battle for the very soul of the nation.

Most economists and entrepreneurs I speak to believe that the recent Chancellor's budget, coupled with Mr Milliband's Net Zero madness and Ms Rayner's employment law stranglehold, will add up to an economic disaster for the UK. Furthermore, this is not the end of our journey under this Labour administration, it is set to get worse.

Economically we are heading for a decade that will mirror the nadir of the 1970s, as if the Labour Party had learned nothing and the Blair government had been written out of the history books. Old Labour Marxism.

There is already a shrinking of the enterprise sector with far fewer family businesses since lockdown. There will be inflation, private sector wage depression and job losses. Pensions will be impacted, storing up trouble for the future. A low productivity state will dominate investment.

The government is taxing and borrowing huge sums, many times more than supposed black holes with no consequent improvement in public sector productivity. Money given away for nothing in return. All this in order to reward Labour leaning, vested interests and, in some cases, simply to crystallise spiteful policies of envy.

These policies and actions taken together will fail to improve growth leading to more taxes and red tape and a consequent downward spiral.

There is an even greater and existential threat. The governments' meddling in everything from free speech through to inheritance tax is an attack on democracy and on the family, the basic building blocks of Western society and the wealth of the British nation.

It is straight out of the Marxist playbook. In order to gain control they must build the public sector, replace and supplant individual freedom and enterprise and remove anything in their way. The greatest barrier to the statist agenda has always been the family and therefore attacking family farms and family businesses is considered merely collateral damage stemming from the aggrandisement of the statist vested interests.

We now face years of self-harm and the economic/business illiteracy of those in charge. A second term for this government would likely spell permanent, irreparable damage. It is essential that Ms Badenoch lead an effective opposition and succeed in averting a second term. She is right to focus on the May elections to give her credibility and authority within her own party, however she also needs to give hope and that depends on setting out a new vision for prosperity , growth and the freedoms necessary for innovation and wealth creation.

She has already declared, correctly, that wealth creation and growth are the purview of the private sector and not of the dead hand of the public sector. She must also point to the absurdity of the PM courting a failing EU when there is now a golden opportunity to seek a trade deal with the most dynamic and largest economy on earth, the USA. If this opportunity is missed it will surely go down as one of the stupidest mistakes in history.

It seems Ms Badenoch understands that enhanced growth and prosperity are vital but we do not yet know whether her Shadow Chancellor understands this or indeed the power of as yet untaken opportunities afforded by Brexit.

She also seems to get it that free speech, enterprise, capitalism are fundamental pillars of our prosperity and democracy.

There is hope.

John Longworth is an entrepreneur and businessman, Chairman of the Independent Business Network of family businesses and a former MEP.