‘Mummy won and I’m very happy’ – she’ll give this country the kick up the backside it needs

In Kemi Badenoch, the Tory party has a real dynamo at the helm

Mummy won! But we already knew, because minutes before the result was announced, a Jenrick staffer entered the room in tears. Look on the bright side: had Kemi lost, he’d have a black eye. The Tories have elected their fierce new leader as much out of fear as love, and they know they’ve a mountain to climb. A new poll puts them one point ahead of Labour – on 29 per cent. That’s like being told you’re one inch taller than Ronnie Corbett.
Things could be worse: a pipe has burst and I’m currently homeless. So I arrived at the Grand on Northumberland Ave with my life in a rucksack, looking and smelling like Columbo. I assumed no one would be here – just Kemi, Jenrick and a reporter from Country Life – but the room was full. The hotel is opposite a Thai spa. Many of the MPs were in the area.
Party chair Bob Blackman milked his five minutes on GBNews for all it was worth, thanking the candidates, his staff, the cameramen and the drama teacher who told him to reach for the stars. As for members, we finally learnt the truth: 131,000 people were eligible to vote, said Bob. But how many of those are actually alive? Seventy-three per cent took part; 45 votes were rejected after voting “for more than one candidate” (dementia can be so cruel). As the orchestra started playing him off, Blackman hurriedly opened the envelope: the Oscar goes to… Mrs Badenoch.
“Isn’t it great that we’ve got another female leader?” he added clumsily, and “we’re the first great party to have a black leader!” It was total cringe, everything the meritocratic Tories are supposed to be against, but it’s also true. Millions will ask: “Who is this black woman the Tories just elected leader?”
Readers, she is a star. She rose to her feet, lifting her heel off Rob’s toe, and accepted, “the most enormous honour… to lead the party that I love.” Get down to business, she said: “stand up for our principles.” There’ll be a role for Jenrick in Badenoch’s new team, no doubt. Someone has to polish those shoes.
The winner left through double doors; the MPs hung around them giddily, attracted to power like filings to a magnet. “I have always been a fan,” they lied to reporters; at the back of the room, doubts were aired. Kemi is too confrontational, said a few, too aggressive with the media. They don’t realise that most male journalists rather like that, that we’re still little boys seeing how far we can wind up mummy before she gives us a smack.
I left the hotel as happy as Philip Larkin upon the election of Margaret Thatcher, who wrote: “At last politics makes sense to me.” After years of the parties copying each other, now we have a loopy Left government run by a vicar opposite a Tory party run by a Right-wing dynamo. Never mind “do the Tories need her?”, the country needs her. We are wet, self-indulgent and, in my case, wearing week-old underwear. This woman can give us all a good kick up the backside.