The first rule of putting on a press conference is ensuring you have a full room and Kemi Badenoch proved she can still pull a crowd. Tory faithful who turned up for her speech had one job: Cheer loudly and cheer often – and they did.
This was the moment when Kemi Badenoch needed to show she was not spooked by the latest spate of defections to Reform UK. She portrayed them as drama queens and kids throwing a tantrum who could not be trusted with a role in Government.
There was a second purpose to the speech. She also needed to lay down the law to any liberal Tories who might have thought the departure of harder Right colleagues created an opportunity to shift the party away from its focus on immigration.
Not a bit of it. Mrs Badenoch has no intention of making the Conservatives a blue-tinted version of the Liberal Democrats. Within moments of stepping up to the lectern she defended her plans to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights and scrap the Climate Change Act.
There was no sense she wishes she still had former Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick in her top team or that she laments the departure of ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman – never mind the likes of Romford MP Andrew Rosindell.
In her message to the not-so-dearly departed, she said: “I’m sorry you didn’t win the leadership contest, I’m sorry you didn’t get in our shadow cabinet, I’m sorry you didn’t get into the Lords, but you are not offering a plan to fix this country. This is a tantrum dressed up as politics.”
Her speech came in the wake of former Scottish Tory leader Baroness Davidson and ex-Mayor of the West Midlands Sir Andy Street launching Prosper, a group to champion the centre-ground.
Mrs Badenoch criticised “former politicians who are in denial that the world has changed, who don’t want to admit that immigration is too high”.
Just in case anyone was in any doubt that a party that went into coalition with the Lib Dems in 2010 might now go soggy, she said: “We are not a party of the Left and we should not be accommodating people who want to paint that picture.”
It may be a long time before the Conservatives stage a press conference to unveil a defector to their party – but Mrs Badenoch wants to swell the party ranks.
She issued a clarion call for people wanting to form the “next generation of MPs” to get their applications in.
“We are building an army that is going to deliver meritocracy, dismantle the bureaucratic class and get Britain working again,” she said.
After the speech, shadow cabinet minister crowded together for a family photo. It was a show of unity by a party in battle mode – and with Mr Jenrick no longer in the ranks Mrs Badenoch is the undisputed general.