The trouble with Kemi Badenoch is that if she sees someone lying on the ground, she can’t resist the temptation to kick them. She lacks empathy, to put it politely.
There she was at Prime Minister’s Questions, facing an open goal for a change, and attacking the prime minister, who, even three days later, can look after himself. Then she spots the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, her lip quivering, seemingly on the brink of crying. Straight in goes the Badenoch boot – she said Reeves looked “absolutely miserable” and described her as Starmer’s “human shield”. After Starmer failed to confirm Reeves in post for the rest of the parliament – a tall order for any appointee – Badenoch piled on the punishment: “How awful for the chancellor that he did not confirm she would be in post.”
Surely it might have crossed the mind of the Tory leader that the reason the chancellor was displaying unusual emotion might not have been all to do with politics. Most of us, I’m sure, wondered if there’d been some other explanation, some other bad news of a personal nature, as No 10 later disclosed. Even if it was all about the welfare reform fiasco, is it right to treat parliamentary exchanges as blood sports? To revel in the misery of an adversary? To mock them personally for a show of emotion?
In fact, it has emerged that in the post-PMQs huddle with the press, Badenoch’s spokesperson seemingly urged the journalists to go after Reeves. Asked, “So no matter what is going on in your personal life, you should disclose that to the public?” he replied: “I think we should find out what's going on.”
I was going to say, “We’re all human,” but, giving as good as Badenoch does, there are times one wonders if she is. Through the debates about disability benefits – we’re talking about some people in deep despair here – Badenoch sounded arrogant and dismissive. She implied they’re all lazy. This was her message to disabled people last week, on X (Twitter): “The world owes no one a living. Millions of people cannot just sit on welfare and expect to be paid to do so. And if they don’t like it, that’s their problem, not the state’s.” It was Badenoch at her very worst.
Yes, it could work, politically, because there is a callous, wilfully ignorant strand of public opinion that resents any kind of social security system, full stop. Well, excluding the bits they’re likely to use, such as the state retirement pension, thoroughly inflation-proofed under its “triple lock”. Badenoch bangs on about welfare reform, but the biggest element is the old age pension, at three times the spending on sickness and disability benefits. Taming the welfare bill is practically impossible without doing something that hurts pensioners. But does she ever mention that? No, because they’re the only demographic voting for her.
I’m not sure that either her party or the public likes the Badenoch style. It can misfire, causing sympathy for the victim of her scorn rather than support for her argument. It’s possible her aggressive approach to Tuesday’s vote reminded some Labour rebels just how dangerous she is, and persuaded them to back the government after all. When she senselessly slagged off Starmer after the last Nato summit, where he had helped keep Donald Trump onside, she sounded negative and, as the PM put it, “unserious”. One of her own MPs mildly rebuked her for putting party first.
Badenoch doesn’t connect with the public in the way Nigel Farage does, or Boris Johnson in his heyday. Robert Jenrick, who’s continuing with his informal leadership campaign, is better at campaigning and forcing change on the government. Mel Stride is better in the Commons. She was fortunate this week that the government had been so useless that she had no alternative but to succeed. When she stumbles again, as she will, her party might start kicking her when she’s down.
