There are questions over whether new Tory leader can hold splintered party together, or even piece together a worthy shadow cabinet

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Kemi Badenoch might have avoided the cursed 52%-48% ratio which has riven the Conservative party before, but the close-run nature of her 56.5% winning margin in the Tory members’ vote shows the scale of the task before her.

It is hard to overstate the challenges Rishi Sunak’s replacement faces, even setting aside the much-cited fact that the last new UK leader to take a party directly from an election defeat to government was Margaret Thatcher in 1979.