Kemi Badenoch is impressing... but there's a simple reason she's the wrong choice to be Tory leader, says Kelvin MacKenzie
Kemi Badenoch is being lined up as a potential Tory leader
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There is much talk that Kemi Badenoch will be the next Tory leader. Rupert Murdoch has twice quietly had her round for a cuppa of tea to put her through paces. Mind you a third time would mean they were engaged.
I don’t think she has leadership qualities, and once again it will the nation’s hero, Mr Bates, who will have exposed those frailties. As he has already done with Lib Dim leader Sir Ed Davey.
Clearly bright, a masters in engineering and a law degree don’t just fall out of the sky, but what is becoming clear is that Ms Badenoch can talk a better game than she can deliver.
Cast your mind back a couple of months to a quiet Saturday afternoon when suddenly Sky News announces that Henry Staunton has been fired as chairman of the Post Office.
Shortly after the news is broken Ms Badenoch calls Staunton to say he’s sacked. That’s not the normal way round. Her first mistake.
Anyway, Staunton stays schtum for a week or so and then goes to the Sunday Times and reveals an astonishing fact. That when offered the job he was told to go slow on making payouts to the sub-postmasters and leave the problem to whoever the next government might be.
Badenoch, seeing the threat to herself and her carefully crafted image as a safe pair hands in the Cabinet, makes her second much larger mistake. She goes public and basically calls him a liar.
But Staunton, an accountant, has been around a long time and has sat on the Boards of a number of British companies and had kept a contemporaneous note of the conversation to take his time on handing out compensation.
Not only that but had had filed it and had even shared it with the Post Office CEO, a charmer called Nick Reed.
Rishi then faced questions over the row and failed to take the Badenoch position that Staunton was a liar. Since then she has gone missing in action. Not a word on the issue.
But what has emerged is that it if Ms Badenoch had done her homework she should have let the chief executive go rather than Staunton. Firstly, there was a shocking 50-page dossier on him by the HR director making bullying allegations etc and then there was his constant demand for a substantial rise on his £800,000 pay package.
You might have thought when there were sub-postmasters killing themselves because of the injustice of it all that he would have said I’m a lucky guy and try and get by on his £800K. But no.
Finally, a Commons select committee accused Reed of misleading them over attempts to stop employees from discussing claims that faulty tech was responsible for sub-postmasters being wrongly prosecuted for fraud.
I would have thought with litany of allegations it was only a matter of days before Ms Badenoch should do the right thing and say goodbye to Reed.
And if I were her I call Staunton, apologise, and ask him to return. That is of course is out of the question.
But there is a question of Ms Badenoch’s competency. This is the first time that she has raised her head above the parapet and it’s been pretty much a disaster.
What happens when the stakes are much higher? She is not the right person to lead the Conservatives back to the Promised Land.
Murdoch's doctor's advice
I’m told Murdoch visited his doctor before becoming engaged for the fifth time at 92 and asked if it was safe to have sex at his age. His doctor replied;’’ Only if you don’t join in.’’
The Tory mob have forgotten their principles
Good editorial in The Times today taking the Conservatives apart for their forgetting they were Conservatives and throwing money around like drunken sailors (not sure we have sailors anymore, we certainly don’t have working aircraft carriers).
One line in the Times editorial struck home; ‘’Why on earth is someone on £60,000 even receiving child benefit?’’
Since 2001 every government has spent more that it raised in taxes. Throw in the £400billion Boris spent on Covid- we couldn’t afford that furlough deal- and we are today stoney broke. And under Starmer going to become a lot broker.
The mob that have been in government since 2010 have forgotten the guiding principles of small state, fiscal probity and lower taxes. As the comment piece says it did not always make the Conservatives popular, but it made them winners.
I agree with the Times. They will repent at leisure.