"Sunshine Or Storm": Kemi Badenoch Asks Tories To Take A Punt On A Straight-Talking Poker Player
10 min read
A divisive figure who is well-liked by the Tory party membership, there is more to Kemi Badenoch than meets the eye.
From wanting popular rap music at her leadership launch to poker playing in her spare time, many still see her as the candidate to beat.
The biography
Olukemi Adegoke, 44, was born in Wimbledon and spent her childhood in Lagos, Nigeria, alongside time in the US where her mother was lecturing.
The eldest of three, she grew up wanting to be a doctor like her parents: her father Femi, a GP with his own clinic, and mother Feyi, a professor of physiology at the University of Lagos’ College of Medicine. As a schoolchild, she would sometimes have to take her own chair to class. The hard work paid off, and at 16 her SAT scores won her a partial pre-med scholarship to Stanford, but her parents couldn’t afford the place.
Kemi was born in London after her mother travelled to the UK for private medical treatment. But after time in Lagos, with £100 in her pocket and her “golden ticket” British passport, Badenoch arrived back in London aged 16 to study part-time A-levels, paying her way by working at McDonald’s, among other jobs.
Having studied computer engineering at the University of Sussex, Badenoch initially worked in IT, before studying part-time at Birkbeck, University of London and gaining a law degree.
She admitted to “a foolish prank” when, aged 28, she hacked and defaced Harriet Harman’s website, posting a hoax blogpost claiming the then Labour minister for women and equalities was supporting Boris Johnson in the London mayoral race.
Badenoch was a director at The Spectator magazine and then an associate director at Coutts. She later became a member of the London Assembly and was economic spokesperson for the Greater London Authority (GLA) Conservatives. At the GLA, she met Florence Eshalomi, now the Labour MP for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, who remains a friend. But the pair were often confused for one another by staff. Badenoch used to joke she’d have to keep her glasses on 24/7 so people could tell the difference.
The key thing that stood out, then and now, is that Kemi will argue her point
In her 2017 speech to conference Badenoch spoke of her father instilling in her the Conservative values of “aspiration and personal responsibility”. If she complained about something, he would tell her: “Kemi, 90 per cent of what happens to you is down to you, and only 10 per cent is other people. When things go wrong, ask yourself what you can do to make them better.”
She never would have become an MP, Badenoch says, without the help of three “white, middle-aged Conservative men”: Graham Brady, Francis Maude and Guy Opperman. Brady helped secure her competitive selection interview for Saffron Walden; Maude encouraged her as a young Conservative; and Opperman acted as an MP-mentor to Badenoch.
Badenoch, who has said she is “not really left-leaning on anything”, joined the Tory Party aged 25 as “sort of a quarter-life crisis phase”. The first Tory event she attended was a Conservative Future (then the party’s youth movement) Christmas party, hosted in the City with Maude, who introduced Badenoch at her recent leadership launch.
Upon becoming the MP for Saffron Walden (now North West Essex), she settled into a grouping of the 2017 intake, including Julia Lopez, Alex Burghart and Lee Rowley, all part of her core team. They were all delighted to join Parliament; in mild contrast to a wider Tory disappointment over their underwhelming electoral performance against Jeremy Corbyn.
Having served as secretary of state for business and trade and minister for women and equalities, she was unsuccessful in her first bid for leadership in 2022. She currently serves as shadow housing secretary.
The pitch
‘Renewal 2030’ is the banner beneath which Badenoch fights. ‘Renewal’, a supporter notes, was one of the top words used by then-leadership hopeful David Cameron in 2005, although another insists there is no deliberate echo: “There are only so many words to project optimism.” The slogan’s second half, 2030, intends to inject realism. If Labour is doing well, the Tories expect the party to go for an election after four years. If so, the Conservative Party will likely lose in 2028. But if it is in five years, the Conservatives believe they stand a chance and 2030 could well mark their first year in government.
Badenoch is said to privately acknowledge that the ‘roaring 20s’, promised after Brexit, didn’t materialise – lost to Covid, war in Ukraine and now a Labour government. She believes 2030 has the potential to be the next great decade. Explaining Conservative values to non-Conservatives is one of her key political motivations. She cites one of her greatest triumphs as “converting” former Marxist Katharine Birbalsingh, who runs the Michaela free school and is known as ‘the strictest headteacher’, to her Conservative leanings.
Badenoch is a veteran of the culture wars. As equalities minister she crafted the transgender guidance for schools and a proposed law to ensure single-sex toilets in all public buildings.
She has had a high-profile spat with actor David Tennant over trans policy after he said he wished she did not exist any more. In 2015 she criticised the response to the casting of a Black Hermione in the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child West End show, saying people launching to defend it were “virtue-signalling at phantoms”.
But Badenoch has spoken of her personal experiences of racism, complaining about then-fellow Tory MP Anne Marie Morris for using the N-word in a public debate about Brexit. Or when Labour activists shouted at Badenoch in 2010: “How can you support the Tories after everything we’ve done for you?”
She says the Conservative Party needs to “stop acting like Labour” to win back power and that in the past the Tories “talked right and governed left”. Failing to deliver on pledges has proved a fatal flaw, Badenoch says, and – in criticising rivals for pursuing “easy answers”, particularly on migration – she has so far refused to commit to leaving the European Convention on Human Rights or to a net migration target.
The hinterland
Kemi Badenoch wanted to walk on the stage for her leadership launch to the song Players by Coi Leray. That would have meant lyrics like “Bitches gettin’ money all around the world/Cause girls is players too” ringing around the grand library of the Institute of Engineering and Technology’s Savoy Place headquarters. Sadly, perhaps, the candidate bowed to her camp’s pleadings for something more sedate.
She won’t say something is good if it isn’t
At hustings Badenoch often mentions her husband, Hamish, with whom she has three young children, using the line: “I love the Tory Party so much I married the deputy chairman of my association.” Like the rest of the party, however, her household was divided by the decision to leave the EU. She recalls a time during the Brexit campaign where she was accosted by an arch-Remainer thrusting a leaflet into her face, who it turned out was actually her husband. She ran away laughing, refusing to make eye contact.
The pair met at a Dulwich and West Norwood Conservative Club event in 2009. When she stood against Tessa Jowell in Dulwich the following year, Hamish was her campaign manager, helping to deliver leaflets. But his campaigning help was not repaid by Badenoch, who kicked Hamish off the candidates list upon becoming vice-chair of the party – less than a year into her parliamentary career as MP for Saffron Walden – wanting to avoid a conflict of interest (she was head of candidates and he was applying for seats).
Once “whacked in the face by a middle-aged woman, a hardened leftie” when presenting a policy paper on Africa at Oxford Town Hall as a London Assembly member, Badenoch was accused of a failure to understand poverty as she was wearing expensive clothes, even if they were from Zara. Now she does have slightly more expensive tastes, often shopping at luxury workwear brand The Fold, and is understood to be occasionally using the services of an image consultant – and taking tips from her team on body language. Though one person from Badenoch’s team maintains: “Kemi is her own stylist.”
A prosecco-drinking poker player, she has expressed her desire to be a “fun leader” fuelled by optimism. She is also a skilled chess player, winning a national girls’ competition when she was seven years old. (A match against Chancellor Rachel Reeves would be intriguing.)
Kemi Badenoch and Michael Gove (Alamy)
Her backing from Michael Gove was part of what gave her some real momentum in the 2022 Tory leadership election, but the pair had a falling-out after Gove had a relationship with one of Hamish’s married friends. The pair are said to be on friendly terms again.
Florence Eshalomi, the Labour MP for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green and a friend from their days on the GLA together, says: “She is very family-oriented… I remember when I got elected, she was telling me how hard it would be with childcare and juggling everything. She said she literally doesn’t see the kids until about Thursday. She thought I was really lucky being able to do school runs with a London constituency.”
When Badenoch faced criticism for going on holiday during the summer recess with the leadership contest already under way, Eshalomi came to her defence. “She has just returned from having survived a big general election. She’s going on holiday with her children. She’s going to throw herself into this leadership election. Cut her some slack!”
What others say
Having served on GLA committees with Badenoch, Eshalomi says: “The key thing that stood out, then and now, is that Kemi will argue her point... I think that’s a good thing. Especially in politics, where it is still dominated by white men, people make the assumption that – as a minority or as a woman – you won’t have your own arguments. You can’t justify them, or stick to your guns. I commend her for that, even if I don’t necessarily agree with her views.”
Kemi is a weather changer, unlike the others, but what people aren’t clear on is whether it’s for sunshine or a storm
People would be wrong to believe Badenoch does not have cross-party friendships, as Eshalomi says: “We’re friends. Our children are of a similar age. We’re the same heritage. We bonded juggling maternity leave and childcare at the GLA. We supported each other in our selections and elections.” However, colleagues have remarked that she is “confrontational” and “holds a grudge”, with one Tory MP claiming: “Her style is not one that appeals to the electorate, how would it be a good idea to use that as our way back to government?”
“She won’t say something is good if it isn’t,” counters a supporter. “I think the public is ready for that relationship but I don’t know whether the Conservative Party is.”
An undecided MP says: “Kemi is a weather changer, unlike the others, but what people aren’t clear on is whether it’s for sunshine or a storm.”
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