Kemi Badenoch

[CassieMaddox]

Looking unlikely to win the Conservative leadership now and has gone very quiet about women's rights/the EA during her campaign.

Current favourite is Cleverly.

I know she had a lot of support on here so just wondering what people thought had gone wrong for her?

Her comments on maternity pay were so not a good look

Yes OP, I’m sure you, as a Conservative voter, are wondering what went wrong for her.

Independent thinks she's still in the lead
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/james-cleverly-robert-jenrick-tory-polling-b2624578.html

Oh that's odd, I swear I saw her doing really well, in the news this afternoon?

The only woman's rights she gives a shit about are KB's rights. At best, she considers UK women, "useful idiots".

Project 2029.

I'm GC and like many in real life, also fairly left wing. In my view she would be a disaster for women and frankly everyone but the super rich.

It looks like we are going to be having our Trump vs Kamala election next time around. She is just off the charts batshit.

Was there any need?
I don't vote conservative but I do follow politics and am GC so I'm interested.

Oh that's interesting! I was looking at bookies odds which had her third.

I think her fatal error has been trying to make working mothers Woke. Talk about kicking your supporters in the face, and only months after trying to make a Labour government "the worst thing that could ever happen to women"!

She's basically demonstrated why many women couldn't bring themselves to believe the Tories/Reform really care about women's rights. We've just been a handy wedge issue for her, nothing more.

I think she is a really good example of the problem if single issue thinking/voting. Say in some parallel universe, she ended up PM. Would a world with no men in women's spaces but even shittier maternity rights be better for women? She is so not on the side of angels.

She's more Thatcherite than Margaret Thatcher herself ever was. She is very far to the right.

Her comments regarding maternity pay and about how most civil servants (my DD is one) are so bad they should be in jail have shown her true colours and who she really is.

She would be a terrible choice as leader and I am honestly gobsmacked at the amount of support she seems to get on here.

She's my MP and she's dreadful.

Just because she spoke up about women’s safe spaces does not mean she is a decent person who would make a good pm.
This is why I would never be a single issue voter.
I always remember watching her give evidence at the covid enquiry and she was laughing about poverty saying how it wasn’t the government’s role to cure it.
Her recent comments on maternity pay show who she really is once again.
Just an entitled right winger with no empathy or understanding for anybody except her rich cronies.

Her job would not be prime minister, but to hold the government to account for the next five years. To pick holes in their project and identify its failings.

I don't think she is a one issue politician at all. The reason she's had so much attention here is because she is the strongest of all when it comes to pushing back against gender ideology. But I've watched her in debate and in committee on numerous occasions and she does have a firm grasp of fundamentals and can articulate them well, and with clarity. Which is why she's popular with the members.

Whether or not you agree with her proposals is another matter.

I think it is a big leap to suggest someone is" not a decent person", just because they is not of your tribe. I think she's thoroughly decent. She's honest, to the point...you know what you are getting. She doesn't try to massage the message.....but maybe she'd be more popular if she did.

@Shortshriftandlethal I don't think that poster meant that Badenoch is a single issue politician. I think she meant that some people support her because of her stance on a single issue, ignoring her other views.

Whoever becomes the leader of the Tories (it won't be Kemi) won't be there next year, let alone 2029.

Look how they cycled through leaders 1997-2010.

Besides, who are the Tory voters ? No one under 63 for a start.

And it seems rather than creep back to the centre - where parties win elections - they really are determined to beach themselves on the ever shallower waters of extremists. Who are very loud. But also very few.

With the added piquancy that they still can't work out why. Which doesn't really suggest they are that bright. I would worry if they were allowed anything more complex than crayons at this point.

Even if she does not become the leader of the opposition, I'm sure she'll have a very important role going forward. She cuts through the crap...and gets to the point. We're going to need her to hold Starmer's feet to the fire when he attempts to 'modernise' the GRA next year. I'm glad to see Victoria Atkins still in office too.

I suspect that given five more years of Starmer's ineptness and inability to inspire - people may well come to view the situation quite differently in years to come. Labour only got 36% of the vote - and its support is fractured along many lines.

The job of the next Tory leader will be to identify core Conservative principles and articulate them well; but also, very importantly, to interrogate the government.

Oh she undoubtedly will. Sniping from the sidelines and ensuring there is never a "Tory party" but 2 separate parties locked in a death struggle.

Whoever does "win" will then have their metaphorical balls in exactly the same vice Sunak did where they can't enforce discipline because it will lead to a leadership challenge, so will be forced to put up with the drip drip of "I would have done it better" - mainly from dear Kemi, but I can't see Cleverly or Jenrick keeping quiet either.

Still anything that keeps the Tories shrinking into nothing can't be that bad. And it's not like they didn't ask for it. They laid out a red carpet, called it "Sir" and offered it a hand shandy. No need to feel sorry for them.

Maybe some do.....but personally I quite like her directness on a range of issues....even if she is too ideological on economics for my taste.

Fuck core conservative principles. They need to identify some voters first. Disillusioned Labour voters are not automatic Tory votes by a long stretch. Not in a country which - despite the noise - is still predominantly mildly centre-right.

Besides, we all know what core conservative principles are - that is their problem. We saw very clearly 2010-2024 that core conservative principles do not involve anything making life better for the average person and everything making life richer for Tory chums.

As you noted, demographically, FPTP is irreparably broken. And the way it's broken won't favour the Tories who will wish they hadn't poo-pooed the chance to change it in 2011.

I think the Tories need to be able to re-articulate core conservative principles and go forward from there. What is the vision - and in a positive sense. What are the core values?

Jenrick is too caught up in trying to capture what he imagines Reform voters care about. Kemi, on the other hand, very much focuses on fundamentals and principles. She's an engineer. She's interested in how things work and in systems.

Cleverly has more of an appealing, all round persona...but he doesn't seem to articulate any key ideas other than about being "nice and normal".

It is difficult to know what Starmer's Labour principles are...I don't think Starmer knows himself. He's not a natural political creature.And In five years the world will look quite different.