Tetchy Badenoch criticised me for asking hard questions - but leadership challenge talk won't go away

In the 11 months since Kemi Badenoch has become party leader, the Conservative Party has dropped from 26% to 17% in the polls.

It has lost nearly 700 council seats, 16 councils, while 18 senior Tories have defected, including one of the party's great thinkers, Danny Kruger. Politics Live: Tory councillors defect to Reform Her personal poll rating, minus 47, is worse than the lowest ebb of Iain Duncan Smith's fated leadership and worse than when Boris Johnson resigned.

To rub salt into the wounds, a Sky News/YouGov poll this week found that the majority of Tory members think Robert Jenrick should be the leader, while half don't think she should lead them into the next general election. Being leader of the Opposition is often described as the hardest job in politics, but for Badenoch, with Reform stealing the march as the party of the right, it looks pretty much impossible.

For someone who needs to try to win people over, Badenoch has a curious style. She likes to be known as a leader who isn't afraid of a fight and, at times, she approached our interview at the Conservative Party conference as if she was positively looking for one.

A few times in our interview when I asked her a question she didn't like, or didn't want to answer (it is my job to ask all politicians hard questions), she seemed tetchy. And when I deigned to ask her whether she admired Nigel Farage, she criticised me for asking the question.

She asked why I was not asking her if I admire Sir Keir Starmer or Sir Ed Davey. Her approach surprised me, as I had asked the prime minister exactly the same question a week before.

He'd answered it directly, without arguing over why I had asked it: "I think he is a formidable politician," said Sir Keir. Badenoch told me she didn't understand the question, and then told me she wasn't interested in talking about him.

It made for an awkward, ill-tempered exchange. The facts remain that Farage is topping the polls, helped by Labour's collapsing support and the Conservatives' deep unpopularity.

And in the run-up to our interview, Reform drip-fed the news that 20 Tory councillors were defecting to Farage's party. There is open talk in Badenoch's party about whether the Tories will need to try to come to some sort of agreement with Reform at the next election to try to see off Labour and 'progressive parties'.

Farage says absolutely not, as does Badenoch - but many in her party do not think she has that luxury. Andrew Rosindell, MP for Romford, told GB News he'll lose his seat unless the two sides "work together" and said the right must unite to defeat the left.

Arch-rival Robert Jenrick pointedly refuses to rule it out, saying only it's "not the priority". Meanwhile, party members support an electoral pact by two to one, according to our Sky News poll.

On the matter of whether these MPs, and party members, have a point, Badenoch bristled: "It is important that people know what we stand for. Robert Jenrick is not the leader of the Conservative Party, neither is Andrew Rossindell.

I am the leader of the party and we are not having a coalition or a pact with Reform." Read More:Jaunty Jenrick: a leader's speech in all but nameKemi Badenoch praises Thatcher but faces fight with grandees When I ask colleagues if they think Badenoch is too aloof, too argumentative, too abrasive to lead this rebuild, the popular refrain for her supporters is that she is "a work in progress" and that it would be madness to change the leader again. The question is, will she be given the time to develop? The plot to oust her is active and much of the chatter around this conference is whether she might be challenged before or after the May local elections.

There are some colleagues who believe it is better to give her more time to turn things around and, if May is truly dreadful and the party goes further backwards, remove her then. Ahead of conference, when asked by Tim Shipman of the Spectator whether she would resign if the Conservatives go backwards in May, she said rather cryptically "ask me after the locals".

When I asked Badenoch why she said that she replied, "let's see what the election result is about". When I explained that it sounded rather like she might throw in the towel after next May and so was seeking clarification, she told me that I was asking irrelevant questions.

"Your viewers want to know how their lives are going to be better. Not be inside the Westminster bubble politics of who's up, who's down...

It's part of the reason why the country is in this mess. Perhaps if people had scrutinised Labour's policies instead of looking at just poll ratings, they would be running the country better." But Tories are looking at poll ratings and there is a view from some in the party that if the Tories wait until another drubbing in the May local, Scottish and Welsh elections, there might not be much of a party apparatus left to rebuild from.

In short, there is not a settled view on when a challenge might come, but with the party in the position it is in, talk of a challenge will not go away. Badenoch wants to make the case that her "authentic conservatism" is worth sticking with and that the policies the Conservatives are announcing will give them a pathway back.

On borders, the Tories are trying to neutralise Reform with a very similar offer. On the economy and welfare cuts, they hope they can beat Labour and Reform.

But really, the question about this party and this leader is about relevance. The prime minister didn't even bother to name check Badenoch in his conference speech, while Davey trained his guns on Farage rather than his traditional Tory rival.

Badenoch may not like being asked about Reform, might - in her words - not be interested in Reform, but her former voters, and the country, are. The enormous challenge for her in the coming months is to see if she can get them to look at her..