Badenoch best to beat ‘Reform dragon’, claims ex-MP

As Rishi Sunak prepares to step down, the race for a new Tory leader is underway. Although no one has officially announced they’ll run, there are already a number of names in the mix. Kemi Badenoch is a top contender, according to Conservative Home, which suggested that over a quarter of party members back the former business secretary – double the support of her closest competitors Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat, each on 13 per cent.

And now Badenoch has received a public endorsement from her one-time parliamentary private secretary Alexander Stafford. The ex-MP for Rother Valley, who supported Boris Johnson throughout the Partygate scandal and campaigned for Liz Truss in 2022, has taken to the fine pages of the Telegraph to back his former boss.

Diagnosing his party’s problems, Stafford writes: ‘We have talked Right but governed Left’, adding that the pathway to Tory revival is a return to ‘principled Conservative ideology’ – so, er, talking right and governing right, one might say – with Badenoch at the helm.