Kemi Badenoch profile: Combative past of new Tory leader
Many leading politicians are fond of talking about having been on a journey. But Kemi Badenoch’s journey has been longer and more eventful than most.
From the leafy London suburb of Wimbledon to Nigeria in West Africa and back to south London, and from the socialist hotbed of Sussex University to the rural idyll of Saffron Walden in Essex, she will hope her journey will ultimately take her to 10 Downing Street.
Along the way, this battling Boudica of the Conservative Party has earned a reputation for a combative and at times abrasive style of politics, aggressive even: someone who’d cross the road to have a fight.
Politics live: Reaction after new leader of opposition elected
“I am somebody who is very blunt,” she admitted when challenged about this reputation by Sophy Ridge on Sky News this week.
“I’m very forthright and I’m very confident as well. I’m not a wallflower.”
Now the Conservative Party members have voted to elect her as leader after strong performances in hustings and a TV debate which saw her recover from a gaffe-prone party conference.
In the three stages of the leadership contest, she gained momentum at the right time. Robert Jenrick was the candidate with momentum in the early rounds of voting by MPs in September.
James Cleverly then had it after he stole the show at the conference “beauty contest”. But as party members cast their votes, the momentum appeared to be with Ms Badenoch.
It did not look that way at the conference in Birmingham, when she clumsily declared maternity pay was “excessive” and said some civil servants were so bad 10% of them should be in prison.
Ironically, given her maternity pay gaffe, the mother-of-three has benefited from a row over veteran Tory MP Sir Christopher Chope, a Jenrick backer, declaring: “You can’t spend all your time with your family at the same time being leader of the opposition.”
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Badenoch elected Conservative leader
Wimbledon to Nigeria – and back again
Ms Badenoch’s background, however, is literally miles away – more than 3,000, in fact – from those of typical Conservative politicians. Her early years were spent in Nigeria, controversially described by David Cameron in 2016 as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
Her Nigerian parents were comfortably middle class, “with a car and a driver”, she says. Father Femi was a GP with his own clinic, and her mother Feyi was an academic at the University of Lagos college of medicine.
But Ms Badenoch – full name Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke – was born in the private St Teresa’s Hospital in Wimbledon in January 1980 after her parents travelled to Britain and paid for private healthcare. It meant she had a British passport.
She then lived in Lagos until she was 16, when she returned to Wimbledon to take her A levels, in maths, biology and chemistry, living with her mother’s best friend “for a better future”, after arriving in the UK with just £100.
So she worked part-time in Wimbledon’s McDonald’s, cleaning toilets and “flipping burgers”, she says. Yet last month she was ridiculed by Labour MPs after saying: “I became working class when I was 16 working at McDonald’s.”
Next on her journey was Sussex University and a computer course. Here she had no time for the left-wing students she called “stupid lefty white kids” and later denounced Bob Geldof’s 2005 Live 8 charity concerts as patronising to Africans.
Working in banking, she joined the Conservative Party in that year, and though she was a massive Margaret Thatcher fan she became an early Cameroon.
She was on her way, becoming a member of the London Assembly and fighting Dulwich and West Norwood against Labour’s Tessa Jowell in the 2010 general election, coming third behind the Liberal Democrats.
Kemi Badenoch has spoken of her admiration for Mrs Thatcher. Pic: PA
Just like Mrs Thatcher nearly 60 years earlier, it was when she was a parliamentary candidate that Kemi met her husband, Cambridge-educated banker and party activist Hamish Badenoch.
He had been head boy at Ampleforth College, the catholic public school, a councillor in Merton, south London, and Conservative candidate in Foyle, in Northern Ireland, in the 2015 general election.
They were both born at the same hospital in Wimbledon, St Teresa’s, a year apart. After university Hamish worked in Malawi, Nigeria and Kenya before returning to London and Barclays, before his current job at Deutsche Bank.
Read more on Kemi Badenoch:
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Badenoch rejects bullying accusations as ‘utterly false
Entry into politics
But the noughties saw two potentially embarrassing blemishes on Ms Badenoch’s upwardly mobile CV. One was her widely reported hacking of Harriet Harman’s website, revealed shortly after she became MP for Saffron Walden in 2017.
These days, she regards the incident as relatively trivial. “It was a summary offence at the time, the same as a speeding ticket,” she told Sophy Ridge this week. “It was actually something quite different from what the law is now.
“And this was something that happened ten years before I was a member of parliament. It was very amusing at the time. Now that I’m an MP, it’s a lot less amusing.”
The other, described in Lord Ashcroft’s biography, Blue Ambition, was a near-fight with a member of the public at Oxford Town Hall in 2006 during a Conservative party event.
After an argument between the pair, the woman slapped Ms Badenoch and then ran off. Ms Badenoch then chased her up some stairs and grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back, before letting go and the woman ran out of the town hall.
“I never saw her again, thank goodness,” she said, recalling the incident years later.
Once in parliament with a safe seat, now called North West Essex, Brexiteer Badenoch’s ascent up the ministerial ladder was swift: party vice-chair, children and families, international trade, Treasury, equalities and local government, before joining Liz Truss’s cabinet and continuing under Rishi Sunak.
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‘I will swing back’
In the 2019 Tory leadership contest, she backed Michael Gove, widely viewed by MPs as her long-term mentor. Then in 2022, after quitting along with umpteen other ministers triggering Boris Johnson’s downfall, she stood herself, coming fourth. But she had put down a marker.
As a cabinet minister, covering business and equalities at the same time, she has lived up to her reputation as a blunt-speaking – critics would say rude – political scrapper, with some fiery clashes with opponents, some Tories and even Dr Who.
Her handling of the Post Office Horizon scandal was fiercely criticised after she controversially sacked Post Office chairman Henry Staunton when he claimed he was told to “stall” compensation payments – and then had a public row with him.
Courting controversy
One of her most high-profile spats was with former Doctor Who star David Tennant, after he said at the British LGBT awards: “Until we wake up and Kemi Badenoch doesn’t exist any more – I don’t wish ill of her, I just wish her to shut up.”
She hit back on X: “I will not shut up. A rich, lefty, white male celebrity so blinded by ideology he can’t see the optics of attacking the only black woman in government by calling publicly for my existence to end.”
She has also been reprimanded by Caroline Nokes, then chair of the equalities committee and now – ominously for Ms Badenoch – a Commons deputy speaker.
Pic: Reuters
During a bad-tempered and shouty row at a hearing of Ms Nokes’ committee, Ms Badenoch accused the left-wing Labour MP Kate Osborne of lying in a row about trans issues.
Last year she infuriated Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle by issuing a written statement on scrapping EU laws after Brexit rather than making a full Commons statement to MPs.
After she told the speaker she was sorry the timing of the announcement was “not to your satisfaction”, Sir Lindsay bellowed at her: “Who do you think you’re speaking to?”
It’s clashes like these on her long political journey that have led to claims that Ms Badenoch could start a fight in an empty room.
She is, after all, an aggressive, confrontational anti-woke crusader who takes no prisoners. And that’s just what her supporters say!
Sir Keir Starmer, beware.
There’s been a huge increase in animal neglect and abandonment in England and Wales and the RSPCA’s rescue centres are “absolutely full”, according to the charity.
New figures show there were 38,977 incidents of neglect reported to the RSPCA’s emergency cruelty line between January and September 2023.
But for the same period in 2024, there were 48,814 – a 25% increase.
The number of animals dumped in winter has also doubled.
“Our centres up and down the country are absolutely full, and we’re also taking animals into private boarding,” said RSPCA spokesperson Suzanne Norbury.
“So when our teams are out there, they rescue animals and we haven’t got space.
“We’re spending money on private boarding facilities at the moment on top of running centres like this one. It’s costing us £26,000 each and every week.”
It means the charity is trying to absorb extra costs of £1,352,000 a year for emergency boarding.
RSPCA spokesperson Suzanne Norbury said centres are full
At their rescue centre at Frankley near Birmingham, Damon is one of many cats looking for a new home.
He was a stray found on a building site with a broken jaw and has had to have it wired back together at the animal hospital here.
Damon had his jaw wired back together
‘The first thing they cut back on is their animals’
Ian Briggs, a chief inspector for the charity, said: “He must have been in considerable pain, and it was only due to a member of the public letting us know that we were able to intervene and give him the treatment he needed.”
“During COVID, people sought to own pets because they were looking to have companionship.
“Then after lockdown was released and everyone got back to normal, we were then hit by the cost of living crisis. Then year on year we’re seeing finances stretched for everybody, so we believe we’ve got all these extra people who have pets and now some are feeling the financial strain.”
He added: “Because of the Christmas period, we’re in the middle of winter, heating goes up, electricity costs even more, that adds an additional financial burden to people who are already struggling, and often the first thing they cut back on is their animals.”
Damon the cat
Animals found in appalling conditions
Last year, the charity rescued 34 animals from a house in Walsall, including 24 dogs, who’d been kept in appalling conditions.
They were found surrounded by hundreds of empty dog food cans, and faeces.
Following an RSPCA prosecution, two people were disqualified from keeping all animals for life.
They also received suspended 20-week custodial sentences after pleading guilty to offences including failing to provide the animals with veterinary care, a suitable living environment or taking reasonable steps to protect them from pain, suffering, injury and disease.
The animals were rehabilitated at various RSPCA rehoming centres, including the centre at Frankley.
One, a Staffordshire bull terrier cross, was rehomed in the summer.
Sarah Potter with her new cats
‘We needed to give two homeless cats a home’
Cats Peter and Paul are the lucky ones being picked up to be taken to a new home while Sky News was filming at the centre.
Sarah and Martin Potter are taking them back to Worcestershire.
“We recently lost a cat,” said Sarah, “and the house is just completely empty”.
“We’ve just got so much love to give, that we needed to give two homeless cats a home ready for Christmas”.
It can, though, take years for other animals to be re-homed and there are now more than ever needing a new start.
UK
King praises response to ‘lawless’ UK riots in Christmas message – as he gives ‘personal’ thanks to medics
The King has praised the community response to the “anger and lawlessness” of this summer’s riots in towns and cities around the UK in his annual Christmas message.
Charles, 76, also used the message, filmed by Sky News at the chapel of the former Middlesex Hospital in central London, to thank doctors and nurses who cared for him and his daughter-in-law the Princess of Wales through their cancer treatment this year.
Drawing on the Nativity story’s theme of listening to others, the King said: “Through listening, we learn to respect our differences, to defeat prejudice, and to open up new possibilities.
“I felt a deep sense of pride here in the United Kingdom when, in response to anger and lawlessness in several towns this summer, communities came together, not to repeat these behaviours, but to repair.
“To repair not just buildings, but relationships. And, most importantly, to repair trust; by listening and, through understanding, deciding how to act for the good of all.”
King Charles and Queen Camilla attend church at Sandringham on Christmas morning. Pic: PA
Read more:
Sky News behind the scenes of King’s message
King jokes he’s ‘still alive’
Almost 1,000 people were arrested during the summer riots, which came in response to misinformation around the deadly stabbing of three children at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club in Southport in July.
The King visited the Merseyside town after the killings and the ensuing disorder, during which rioters attacked hotels housing migrants.
His final public engagement of the year was in Walthamstow, east London, where thousands gathered in a counter-protest to condemn the rioting this summer.
The King’s Christmas message spoke of the need to support one another, as “all of us go through some form of suffering at some stage in our life – be it mental or physical”.
“The degree to which we help one another – and draw support from each other, be we people of faith or of none – is a measure of our civilisation as nations,” he said.
He added that “those who dedicate their lives to helping others… continually impress me” and he is “thinking especially of the many thousands of professionals and volunteers here in the United Kingdom and across the Commonwealth who, with their skills and out of the goodness of their heart, care for others – often at some cost to themselves”.
The Prince and Princess of Wales with their children Louis, Charlotte and George on Christmas Day. Pic: PA
Reflecting on his cancer treatment, which will continue into next year, he gave his “special, heartfelt thanks to the selfless doctors and nurses who, this year, have supported me and other members of my family through the uncertainties and anxieties of illness, and have helped provide the strength, care and comfort we have needed”.
He also thanked members of the public for their well-wishes after he and the Princess of Wales, 42, returned to public duties in April and September respectively – following courses of cancer treatment.
They and other members of the Royal Family attended church near the Sandringham estate in Norfolk on Christmas morning.
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How Sky News filmed the King’s message
Thoughts with people in ‘Middle East, central Europe and Africa’
The King began his message by recalling his visit to 80th anniversary D-Day commemorations with the Queen in June.
He described meeting “remarkable veterans” and noted that “during previous commemorations we were able to console ourselves with the thought that these tragic events seldom happen in the modern era”.
But he said: “On this Christmas Day, we cannot help but think of those for whom the devastating effects of conflict – in the Middle East, in central Europe, in Africa and elsewhere – pose a daily threat to so many people’s lives and livelihoods.”
He thanked humanitarian organisations working in conflict zones and referenced the gospels’ references to conflict and the “values with which we can overcome” them.
Signing off, he wished “you and all those you love a most joyful and peaceful Christmas”.
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