Ding ding ding! The Tory leadership race is heating up, with the final six candidates now declared. But with Kemi Badenoch currently the bookies’ favourite to win, the Guardian has tonight published a story claiming she was guilty of ‘bullying and traumatising’ behaviour when running the Department for Business and Trade. The paper cites sources who accuse her of being ‘toxic and intimidating’ in the role, thanks to her ‘mercurial’ moods. The Graun also claims that at least three officials found her behaviour so difficult that they felt they had to leave.
One ‘insider’ is quoted as claiming Badenoch had people she would ‘single out’, alleging she was ‘passive-aggressive’ and subjected colleagues to ‘sustained bullying’. The paper further claims that senior officials in Badenoch’s government department are reported to have considered morale to be so low that a ‘town hall’ meeting was called – supposedly attended by 70 staff both in person and online in December 2023. Other department ministers are said to have ‘checked in’ on staff wellbeing and tried to make sure that those allegedly ‘targeted’ by the former business secretary were not left alone with her.
The now-shadow housing secretary has strongly denied the claims – which the Guardian notes never led to any formal investigation – while a spokesperson has blasted them as ‘completely false and a flagrant smear’. Remarking that the former cabinet minister had ‘high standards’, the spokesperson added that the ex-business secretary had taken issue with ‘underperformance, complaints and bad behaviour’ in her department, and had to ‘let go’ of senior officials.
And now Badenoch herself has taken to Twitter to slam the allegations. ‘It looks like the Guardian hit job I warned about last week has dropped,’ she wrote, continuing: ‘These allegations are smears from former staff who I sacked after they were accused of bullying behaviour, lying about other colleagues to cover up their own failures and general gross incompetence.’ Ouch. Accusing the left-leaning newspaper of acting for Labour, Badenoch added: ‘I won’t let it stop me or my campaign.’
Judging by the current polls, that looks likely to be true…
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