Who is Kemi Badenoch, the odds-on favourite to become next leader of the Conservative party and possibly a future prime minister? A new tell-all book by writer and Conservative party donor Lord Ashcroft about Badenoch’s life and career aims to answer that question.
After months of research and interviews with Badenoch’s friends and colleagues, Ashcroft and his chief researcher Miles Goslett, a former Evening Standard journalist, have put together the most comprehensive portrait yet of the former business secretary, who grew up in Nigeria and moved to Britain at the age of 16. Here are the key takeaways from the book.
Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke was born in St Teresa’s Hospital, London, in January 1980 after her Nigerian parents travelled to Britain and paid for private healthcare. Ashcroft is clear that no taxpayer’s money was expended and the Adegokes were not NHS “health tourists”.
Before 1983 people born in Britain were entitled to citizenship regardless of background. Badenoch claims her parents did not realise she was eligible for a British passport until she was 14, after receiving advice from a family friend. The Adegokes also travelled to London in 1982 to give birth to another child, who also got a British passport. Badenoch has said being branded an “anchor baby” infuriates her because her mother is “the most incorruptible woman”.
During Nigeria’s political troubles in the 1980s and 1990s, Badenoch looked up to Margaret Thatcher. She would invoke Thatcher’s name when she faced sexism in Nigeria, particularly at school where only boys were allowed to participate in certain games and competitions.
Originally it was her aim to study medicine at the University of Oxford because it was the only British university she had heard of when she arrived in London to take A-levels.
While studying A-levels in Maths, Biology and Chemistry, Badenoch lived with with a family friend in Wimbledon. She also took a part-time job in the Wimbledon branch of McDonald’s – she had never tasted a hamburger before and enjoyed eating them for free as a perk of the job.
She got a B in Biology, a B in Chemistry and a D in Maths. She consequently missed out on her place at Warwick University and settled for her second choice of Sussex University, on a computer systems engineering course. She took a year off before starting and quit her McDonald’s job to take a new job at New Look in Wimbledon.
At Sussex she shared digs with a student who was prone to drug use that resulted in aggressive outbursts. Badenoch’s university boyfriend tells Ashcroft he thinks Badenoch got the student expelled from the university.
Her first published political position was an argument in favour of the new £1,000 per year means tested university tuition fees introduced by Tony Blair’s government, written for Sussex’s student newspaper The Badger. In the article Badenoch describes herself: “I must point out that I am a poor, black, female, gay (okay, I’m not but I did think about it once), disabled if you count the myopia, Christian student. I have also been called ‘forrin’. You couldn’t get more minority into one person like that if you tried.”
She avoided extra-curricular activities at Sussex except for a “brief interest in the Afro-Caribbean Society.”
She has expressed disdain for “stupid lefty white kids” she encountered at Sussex and joined the Conservative party in 2005, partly because of her university experiences and partly because she was annoyed at Sir Bob Geldof’s Live 8 charity concerts, which she thought patronising towards Africans.
She was an enthusiastic supporter of David Cameron when he ran for leader of the Tory party in 2005 and was recruited to Cameron’s global policy working group in 2006 as a part time volunteer. She ended up meeting Bob Geldof as part of this role as he was attached to the group. She found him “rude”.
She had a physical altercation with a member of the public at Oxford Town Hall in 2006 during a Conservative party event. The woman slapped Badenoch after a disagreement and then Badenoch chased her and grabbed her by the hair.
Badenoch met her husband Hamish Badenoch, a Cambridge-educated banker, through the Conservative party. He was also a Conservative party activist in her local association.
Badenoch was known for poor timekeeping during her 2010 election run in Dulwich and West Norwood. Activists who worked on her campaign relate that she would often turn up to local party meetings as they were ending. She would sometimes frown at those who dared to criticise her tardiness.
In the green room before the candidate selection meeting in Saffron Walden, where she would become an MP, Badenoch reportedly didn’t small talk with rival shortlisted candidates but instead sat quietly with her headphones on listening to motivational power ballads like “Simply the Best” and “Eye of the Tiger”.
Shortly after becoming an MP, Badenoch admitted previously hacking the website of Labour MP Harriet Harman (username “harriet”, password “harman”). Badenoch apologised but faced criticism for her poor judgment. She was also characterised as untrustworthy. Since this incident, Ashcroft writes, Badenoch has been much more guarded in her public facing role.
She is not a morning person and, according to one colleague Ashcroft spoke to, “she’s not worth talking to before 9.30am and she hates the Westminster culture of breakfast meetings because she prefers to see her children before school.”
While Liz Truss appointed Badenoch to her Cabinet as trade secretary, she reportedly viewed her with suspicion. Truss, writes Ashcroft, never forgave Badenoch for not publicly endorsing her after she was eliminated from the Conservative leadership contest in summer 2022. One of Truss’s advisers briefed heavily against Badenoch, including a story in the Mail on Sunday about her lunching with Michael Gove at Fortnum & Mason.
Badenoch was an early backer of Rishi Sunak in the autumn 2022 Conservative leadership contest. This was seen as one reason for Boris Johnson not standing in the race, because Badenoch took votes he would need over to the Sunak camp. Johnson blamed Gove for Badenoch’s decision and made it known that a planned knighthood for Gove in his resignation honours had been scotched.
Badenoch does not like giving live broadcast interviews because she believes they are a form of “gotcha” journalism designed to wrongfoot her.
