The Tory leadership contest has entered its final week and both finalists are ramping up their media appearances in a last ditch attempt to pick up votes. While she initially opted not to spend too much time on the airwaves, Kemi Badenoch has in recent days accepted more interview invites as concerns about voter turnout grow. The leadership hopeful has now appeared on today’s episode of BBC Newscast – in which she was quizzed on her temperament, ‘principles-first’ approach and, er, superpower. Priorities, priorities…
‘If I could pick one single superhero power, it would be to read peoples’ minds,’ the straight-talking candidate admitted to the Beeb’s Adam Fleming and Chris Mason, noting shrewdly: ‘It would help a lot in politics. People don’t say what they think, they don’t say what they mean – and I think it would probably solve a lot of problems if they did.’ How very curious.
The leadership hopeful added that her perceived abrasiveness by colleagues was ‘one of the manifestations’ of her having ‘a higher threshold for stress’ – and certainly Badenoch is no stranger to speaking bluntly. In recent months, the wannabe Tory leader has accused her former colleague Suella Braverman of having a ‘very public’ mental breakdown, blasted the current Conservative leader Rishi Sunak during a shadow Cabinet meeting and been accused of launching ‘garbage’ attacks by rival Robert Jenrick. Ouch.
And in today’s interview the frontrunner was pulling no punches about the current Prime Minister either. Disputing the suggestion that Sir Keir Starmer had turned the Labour lot into ‘an election winning machine’, Badenoch insisted: ‘Absolutely not. That is not what he did. He sat back and waited for us to mess up – and we did.’ She went on:
I’m not saying that means we should be complacent but there are other factors. Reform helped Labour win. In many seats, Labour didn’t do better than in 2019. They stayed the same or had a lower share of the vote. But we fell far back – and that’s what you get with first past the post.
So I will not be following the ‘Keir Starmer template’. And I think what we are already seeing what happens when you don’t say anything at all for 5 years and then the problems start cropping when you’re in government.
Goodness. Badenoch may be keen to read minds – but given what she is prepared to say aloud, Mr S can imagine her political friends and foes are rather relieved they cannot…
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