When Kemi Badenoch’s mother heard she was running for leader of the Conservative Party, her reaction was far from enthusiastic.
“My mother said, ‘Don’t do it,’ so why would you want to do that?” Badenoch recalled. “My mother thought politics was a very scary job. People are mean to you. They say all kinds of terrible things and it’s dangerous. That’s what worries her.”
However, her father, Femi Adegoke, a doctor and beloved family patriarch who passed away in February 2022, encouraged her career choice.
“My father was the one who was excited about me becoming a politician,” she said.
Ms Badenoch, 44, is one of the country’s most prominent politicians and credits much of her success to her family. She believes that “not having a good family” is the “biggest barrier” to success in life. That’s why she believes family is one of the Conservative Party’s most neglected principles.
The mother-of-three said last week that veteran Tory MP Christopher Chope appeared to suggest that she might find it difficult to become leader because she is “preoccupied with children”. He said more discussion was needed. About “How to raise children together.”
Mr Badenoch, who is one of the final two candidates in the race to succeed Rishi Sunak, criticized John Major’s government for its “back to basics” campaign, which extols the virtues of traditional families.
She said this between hustling for Conservative votes with Robert Jenrick at the Celtic Manor Hotel near Newport in south Wales. It sounded like we were always talking about single moms. Where are the fathers? Why aren’t the dads there? Why don’t they protect their families?
“I remember early on as an MP doing quite a lot of casework on absentee fathers being tracked by the Children’s Benefits Agency. . Family is important.
“And when you look at the prison population, the majority of the male prison population doesn’t grow up with a father. If fathers take good care of their children, their children are less likely to end up in prison. And , these are the kinds of things we need to talk about more.”
Ms Badenoch said if families were not taken care of, “things would be much worse for everyone”.
“Families come in all shapes and sizes, but having the support of people who love you and care for you is essential,” she said. “If you don’t have that, I think that’s the biggest barrier to success in life. Not being blessed with a good family, the family you’re born into, has a far greater impact on your chances in life than the school you go to.” .
“And I know this because I know that if I had been born to a different family, even within an extended family, rather than my parents, things could have been very different… and We should do everything we can to help families thrive and get the support they need.”
But Badenoch does not believe the government can “solve” the fertility crisis. Britain’s birth rate has fallen to its lowest level since records began in 1939.
“I don’t know if the government can force people to have more babies,” she says. “Many countries have tried many things and they haven’t worked. I think fewer people are having children because there are more options.
“I think we’ve also scared a lot of people off by saying things like, ‘Having kids will break you down,’ or ‘It’s going to cost money.’ Know that you can actually have it all. You can’t have it all at the same time. ”
Ms Badenoch, a mother of three, with her husband and newborn baby after being re-elected as Saffron Walden MP in 2019
Mr Badenoch, a former business secretary and current shadow housing secretary, was born in Wimbledon, south-west London, and is one of three children born to Nigerian parents. Her father was a general physician and her mother, Faye Adegoke, was a professor of physiology. She spent much of her childhood in Lagos, Nigeria, where she carried a machete to school. Despite coming from a middle-class family that “had a car and a driver,” she described her upbringing as “very tough.”
“One day, the national water company stopped supplying water,” so the family had to dig their own well to get water and relied on a generator for electricity.
She spent her first year of education at a federal boarding school, which she described as a “very socialist structure”. Students were expected to do manual labor.
“The government doesn’t give you things,” she said. “You have to come to school with your own things. So I had a hoe to plant and a machete[to cut the grass]. I also had to bring my own broom and mattress. It was.”
1987, Kemi and Grandfather in Nigeria
When she was a teenager, her father decided that she should come to England to secure a better future. At the age of 16, she went to live with her mother’s best friend in Wimbledon, where she worked at McDonald’s. She said last month that she had “become working class” after taking on roles such as “flipping burgers” and cleaning toilets.
Addressing those criticizing her comments, she said: “I think people move up and down between classes. This old system of what class meant in the 19th century doesn’t mean what it means today. I’m very aware of the changes in life and the decline in social mobility. We want to prevent that from happening.”
Badenoch studied systems engineering at the University of Sussex and then completed a law degree at Birkbeck, University of London. It was during her student days that she began to form her political views and “understood what the left was.” She called this “ignorance” and “a lot of patronizing behavior”.
“I thought a lot of these students are very entitled but don’t know what life is really like,” she said. “By that time I had come from a developing country and was working at McDonald’s, and I was meeting a lot of kids from private schools in north London who all wanted to be special…of the trendy left. I had a cause.”
In particular, she felt the way they talked about Africa was “very ignorant” and “like a helpless people in need of a savior to solve their problems.” she said: “I think Africans need to sort out Africa.”
Mr Badenoch brought one of his children to the House of Commons when he became an MP in 2019.
Jessica Taylor/British Parliament/AFP
Mr Badenoch started his career in the banking industry and held senior management roles at The Spectator before winning the Saffron Walden seat in 2017.
She then enjoyed a remarkable political rise, joining the government of Liz Truss as international trade secretary. This will be her second time in the leadership role, having lost out in the fourth round in the race to replace Boris Johnson in 2022.
In a televised debate with Mr Jenrick on Thursday, he said there was no need to talk about policy because party members “know what I mean”. However, her main objective is the reform of the state.
He said this was about “rewiring” some of the “things that don’t get the attention”, such as Treasury rules and how appointments are made to civil servants. At a Conservative Party conference earlier this month, she joked that between 5 and 10 per cent of civil servants were “so bad” that they “should be in jail”. She also said about 10 percent were “absolutely amazing.”
Mr Badenoch said this in response to former leader Michael Gove who said during the Brexit referendum campaign that “the people of this country have had enough of experts”. “A lot of them want to do a good job, but they just transferred from the department” to the department… They haven’t developed subject matter expertise, so I think that’s the problem. If they develop subject matter expertise, they will be poached by the private sector, which can pay more… To me, that is a sign that the system is broken. ”
Ms Badenoch said there was “no performance management” when she was junior minister in the Department for Level Up, Housing and Communities (as it was then known).
“I think that’s crazy. Everywhere I’ve worked in the private sector, there was performance management,” she said. “I remember asking my department how many people were laid off, and there were no layoffs.”
He said the opposition had an opportunity to wipe out a clean slate and start doing things “properly”. If she defeats Jenrick, the job will start on her first day as party leader. Contest results will be announced on November 2nd.
For now, she plans to spend the next two weeks flying around the country to participate in husting events to vie for votes. While she is away, her husband Hamish, an investment banker, works as usual and they raise their children together.
Ms Badenoch and her husband Hamish attended the Conservative Party conference earlier this month. She said he had made sacrifices for his political career.
Henry Nichols/AFP
“My husband works a lot more than me because his job is not as weird as mine. He’s the one who’s in all the parents’ WhatsApp groups. I’m already Because I’m in a 5,000 council WhatsApp group and I don’t see anything. He’s the one who can work from home sometimes and attend parent meetings.”
Furthermore, she added: “My spouse has made sacrifices to do this for me, so I owe him so much. I couldn’t have done this without him. I owe so much to him for the support he provides. I’m very grateful, but I think he’s also setting an example for a lot of men out there. Please support the women in your life.”
