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Losing sleep over the war in Iran? Worried sick about the cost of living? Can’t pay your energy bills? Then relax. Because Kemi Badenoch has a displacement activity for you.

It’s becoming increasingly easier to understand the Conservative leader by viewing her as a hyperactive five-year old at the back of the class who is constantly disruptive. Who can’t get through a lesson without some kind of attention-seeking behaviour. Who has a constant desire to be indulged even though her first reactions are invariably wrong. Who flies into a temper tantrum when anyone dares to challenge her.

Take the war. When Kemi first heard that the US had declared war on Iran, her immediate response was to join in. After all, America was an ally so therefore it was de facto a good idea to come to the aid of President Trump. Ay Oh, Let’s Go. The Blitzkrieg Bop. She seemingly didn’t pause to think whether the war had a legal basis or whether there was any strategy towards an end game. No consideration of the long-term effects of a protracted war. Like The Donald, she just assumed Iran would keel over inside a week. An easy win. And great images of military targets being destroyed for her social media feeds. She had the urge to do something. So it might as well be a war.

Then reality began to set in as various members of her shadow cabinet began to suggest that maybe an offensive war wasn’t such a good idea after all. The Americans had no real strategy, the president and Peter Hegseth were liabilities and the UK public wanted nothing to do with another conflict in the Middle East. Least of all one in which the main beneficiary would be the Russians.

So for the last few weeks Kemi has been getting increasingly tetchy as people failed to understand that when she had said she thought the UK should have taken a more proactive role in the attacks on Iran what she had really meant was the UK should not take an offensive role in the attacks on Iran. And like any toddler in the middle of a major strop, the fault was invariably someone else’s. The problem was that we were all halfwits for failing to have understood that yes means no. Even when the evidence against her was clear, there was no arguing. The displacement activity had just moved on and we were all left to play catch up.

It’s been much the same story with energy bills. Though Kemi still hasn’t made the connection between her enthusiasm for the war and the rising costs of oil. Nor has she quite understood that Labour’s promise to freeze the fuel duty cut until September means that fuel duty won’t go up until September. If at all. The small print is not her strong point. She has been acting as if fuel duty was going up immediately. Nor has she quite understood that it is not Keir Starmer who started the war and caused the cost of living crisis. The reality is that the rest of the world is paying a Trump Tax as a reward for the American people having voted an unstable, not very clever sociopath into the White House.

But Kemi can’t bear to be seen to do nothing. A period of calm, thoughtful reflection is not her style. So yet again she has raced to make the wrong call. Ask her to add two plus two and she will somehow always get to five. Kemi has noticed there is an international shortage of oil and that the price per barrel is about $110. She has also noticed the UK has two depleted oil fields in the North Sea that could be exploited.

What she hasn’t noticed is that the Norwegians retained ownership of their oil while we sold ours off. So British North Sea oil and gas get traded at international prices. Meaning there is precisely no knock-on benefit to UK consumers of extracting more fossil fuels from the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil fields. But Kemi sees this as a major win for UK energy security. At least we can take pride in having expensive oil and gas that was extracted from close to home rather than using foreign muck.

It was pointed out to Kemi at the weekend that new drilling licences in the North Sea would not reduce people’s fuel bills. Something her shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho understood only too well when she was in government. Claire also used to be fully committed to renewables and net zero. But not any more. So Kemi has a new tactic. She understands that reopening the North Sea will do nothing to cut the cost of living. But she’s going to do it anyway. Yet another displacement activity.

So on Monday morning Kemi was to be found on an unused oil rig in dry dock in Aberdeen – write your own captions – echoing the Trump mantra of Drill, Baby, Drill. There’s so much she doesn’t understand. It’s as though she thinks that you just turn on a tap somewhere off the Scottish coast and petrol starts overflowing from the pumps all over the UK.

This time though she has a new trick of copying Reform plans to remove VAT from energy bills for three years and to cut green subsidies. Even though it’s renewables that offer the best long-term hope of energy self-sufficiency. Go figure. Strangely, Kemi also has plans to cut windfall taxes on oil and gas companies at the very moment they are making windfall profits. It goes without saying the Tories’ costings leave a lot to be desired. But you try stopping Kemi being Kemi.

Meanwhile, Keir Starmer was in Wolverhampton for Labour’s local election launch that wasn’t a launch. More of an embarrassed mumble. These are the elections Labour rather wishes weren’t happening as it faces near wipe-out. Keir spoke for about 10 minutes, mainly about how he has been on the right side of the Iran war from the start. Sadly for him, that probably won’t make a difference. He then took no questions from the media and the event petered out. Most of the cabinet had made the effort to travel to the Midlands and they looked bewildered. Why had they been made to come? None of us will ever know.