History was made when the word ‘boob’ was used for the first time at a political campaign launch. The culprit was Kemi Badenoch, who had assembled a 10.30am throng of supporters for the Conservatives’ local elections push.
‘Some people,’ cried an energised Mrs Badenoch, ‘want nationalisation under Nigel Farage. And some people want bigger boobs with Zack Polanski. But we want a…’
Precisely what the Tory leader wanted was rather lost on me because my ballpoint pen jumped on my notebook and tore a hole in the page. There was also a dirty laugh from the audience which rendered the rest of the sentence inaudible.
Shadow health secretary Stuart Andrew, who had already been looking a bit morning-after- the-night-beforeish, clutched his chest in Carry On film fashion.
Joy Morrissey (Con, Beaconsfield) managed to catch one of her eyeballs before it bounced on the floor. Andrew Griffith, shadow trade secretary, twitched like Capt Darling in TV’s Blackadder.
Mrs Badenoch, delighted to have mocked the Green Party leader’s past as a breast-enlargement hypnotist, flashed that Terry-Thomas gap in her teeth.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch today assembled a throng of supporters for her party’s local elections push
It is a frisky Kemi Badenoch these days, Quentin Letts writes. Her gaze dances with mischief and she is at ease with demotic language
John Redwood, meanwhile, was wheeled away by orderlies to be revived with defibrillator ping-pong bats. Lord Redwood is 74 but still has some lead in his pencil.
It is a frisky Kemi Badenoch these days, too. Her gaze dances with mischief. She is at ease with demotic language, yet hits her consonants poshly.
There are moments when she almost sounds like a normal human – ie, not a politician. She certainly manages to read an autocue without giving every sentence the same rhythm, which is harder than it might seem.
The product is not yet perfect. She trotted out the cliche about how only her party has ‘a plan’. Plans, please, have been done to near-extinction in political speeches. She also coughed up the line, when attacking Labour, that ‘our country deserves better’. This is a dead formula. But there is a freshness to Mrs Badenoch, even if the theatrics of this event could have been improved.
The venue was the disused St John’s Westminster church in Smith Square, London
To either side of her, in a crescent, stood MPs in dark suits. Zzzzzz. And a warm-up video went phutt. Not that that sort of thing matters too much. Everyone quite enjoys a computer balls-up.
The venue was a disused Westminster church, St John’s in Smith Square, these days a concert hall.
Baroque St John’s was bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1941 and was long a ruin. It was originally built after the Conservatives replaced the Whigs in the early 18th century. Their election slogan then? ‘The Church in Danger.’
Behind Mrs Badenoch stood a bank of London Tories holding banners that said things such as ‘Axe The Fuel Tax’, ‘Abolish Business Rates’ and ‘Get Kids Off Social Media’.
As she arrived in her cream trouser suit the crowd broke into a slightly Nuremburg-ish chant of ‘Kemi! Kemi! Kemi!’ She opened with a tale about a boutique owner in Croydon who has to put up with shoplifters trying to saunter out with entire racks of her stock. Mrs Badenoch pushed forward her jaw and said: ‘Shoplifters, phone thieves, violent thugs – your days are numbered.’
She noted that the bin strikes in Birmingham have now been going three times longer than Peter Mandelson lasted as ambassador to the US. ‘If you vote Labour you get trash,’ she concluded. Someone asked about Reform. Mrs Badenoch shrugged. ‘I don’t care what Nigel Farage thinks – we believe in free speech.’
That brisk tone was maintained during the question session except when someone quietly asked about her justice spokesman’s recent attack on a Muslim prayer rally in Trafalgar Square.
This she treated with distinct caution. She was all for religious freedom but having lived in Nigeria where Islam was widespread she was ‘very uncomfortable with women being pushed to the back of an event’ in a public space. We were almost back to The Church In Danger.
On this form you wouldn’t want to try to push Kemi Badenoch to the back of any event.
