Kemi Badenoch urged to go on “apology tour” for “mistakes” in office

She told Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby: “One of the complaints that I’ve had about Kemi is that it’s hard to scold people into liking you.

“And when she started, she was very much in that mode of kind of chastising people into what she wanted them to think. And I have seen a modification of that.

“There’s also the sense that the Tories haven’t done their contrition tour yet. We got kicked out of office after a really long time as the government after having made many mistakes, and we haven’t done the apology tour that needs to be made.

“And I think that for a lot of people, we will not get a hearing until that’s been done and it’s been done in an authentic way.”

Baroness Davidson went on to say that for the first time back in opposition, the Tories have “a real and present danger on our right flank” in Reform UK.

She added: “There is an alternative, a genuine alternative to the Tories as the alternative to Labour. We needed to get ourselves back on the pitch within one term.

“And usually there’s not that kind of sense of urgency once you’ve been kicked out of office after a long time. And there is that sense of urgency now.

“And I think that CCHQ needs to grasp that in a much stronger way.”

The former Scottish Tory leader is from a different wing of the party to Ms Badenoch, and is considered more of a centrist than the leader.