There's something wrong with Kemi
TetleysTLDR: The Summary
Kemi Badenoch has been sold as the Tory right’s 'straight-talking' saviour, but she’s really a bundle of contradictions wrapped in culture-war bluster. An immigrant who rails against immigrants, a Black woman weaponised by the Tories to dismiss racism, she thrives on division while claiming to despise identity politics. Badenoch postures as a warrior against 'woke', sneering at anti-racism and feminism, while cosying up to Donald Trump’s brand of far-right politics and Conservative Friends of Israel’s power networks. As leader, she’s floundered: polling is dire, Reform UK is eclipsing the Tories, and her party is mutinous. Instead of vision, she offers soundbites, weird tangents (like rants about sandwiches), and bizarre hyperbole (“civil servants should be in prison bad”). Her politics are opportunistic, her leadership incoherent, and her image increasingly a caricature. Badenoch isn’t the Tory future, she's just another toxic fraud destined for the scrapheap.
TetleysTLDR: The article:
Kemi Badenoch is the darling of the Tory right, the Culture Warrior in Chief: the leader for those who find Suella Braverman just a touch too unhinged but still want a full-fat serving of cruelty politics. She is presented as a 'straight-talking' minister who 'says what ordinary people think'. But scratch the surface and you’ll find a politician that's far from ordinary. She's riddled with contradictions: a walking bundle of hypocrisy in designer heels. Born in Wimbledon, raised in Nigeria, and later returning to the UK, Badenoch’s own life story is the classic tale of global migration and dual identity. She benefitted directly from the opportunities that immigration affords and yet, she spends her political career sneering at migrants, voting through policies that slam the door in the face of people walking the very path she once did. She talks about 'integrating into British values' while using her platform to fan culture wars that demonise anyone who dares to be different. It’s a grotesque irony - an immigrant who made it big by hating immigrants. A Black woman who positions herself as the attack dog against 'woke' anti-racism movements. A top table politician who plays identity politics while pretending to despise identity politics. There’s something really wrong with Kemi.
Culture Warrior-in-Chief
Badenoch has fashioned herself as a one-woman wrecking ball against what she calls 'woke culture'. In her twisted world, racism is overstated, feminism has gone too far, and anyone who talks about colonialism is just a professional victim. She accused teachers of indoctrinating' children by teaching about Black Lives Matter, while happily promoting the government’s own state-sanctioned indoctrination of flag-waving, monarch-loving, empire-apologising patriotism.
Her big pitch is that she’s 'telling it like it is'. In reality, she’s just weaponising her background to give cover to the ugliest parts of the Conservative agenda. She can stand up at the despatch box and sneer at anti-racists, knowing the Tories will lap it up precisely because she’s Black. She’s their shield: 'how can we be racist if Kemi says racism is a myth?' It’s cynical, it’s manipulative, and it reeks of opportunism.
The Immigrant Who Hates Immigrants
Badenoch is what is disrespectfully known in conservative circles as a coconut: black on the outside, white on the inside. Her record on immigration policy is as grim as any of her white colleagues on the Tory right. She’s supported crackdowns on asylum seekers, waved through anti-refugee legislation, and indulged the fantasy that Britain is being 'overrun' by desperate people fleeing war and poverty. This isn’t principled politics. It’s projection. It’s the ugly spectacle of someone climbing up the ladder of opportunity, then kicking it away to please the Home Counties voters who think Nigel Farage is 'a bit of a one'. Badenoch owes her position to the very mobility and multiculturalism she now derides. Her brand of politics is not about policy, it’s about resentment. It plays on fears of the 'other' while pretending she’s proof that Britain is fair and meritocratic.
Trump’s British Fangirl
Then there’s her not-so-subtle soggy panties level admiration for Donald Trump and the global alt-right. When Trump was busy tearing up democratic norms in the US, Badenoch was one of the Tory figures talking about how he 'spoke for ordinary people' and had 'tapped into something real'. She’s praised his ability to cut through the nonsense', a polite way of saying she likes his racist dog whistles and authoritarian bluster. The irony, again, is staggering. Here’s a politician who claims to defend 'British values' lining herself up with the most toxic figure in American politics, a man cheered on by white nationalists, conspiracy theorists, and Christian fundamentalists.
And it’s not a one-off. Badenoch has happily appeared at conferences and events that are basically CPAC-lite, rubbing shoulders with the same far-right networks that pumped life into Trumpism. If Braverman was Nigel Farage’s understudy, Badenoch is Trump’s spiritual apprentice, turning culture war into a career, feeding off division, and treating politics as performance art for the reactionary faithful.
Conservative Friends of Israel: The Power Behind the Curtain
No portrait of Badenoch is complete without looking at her role in Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI). Like almost every Tory on the make, she’s courted the organisation that acts as a powerful gatekeeper within the party. CFI bankrolls campaigns, organises trips to Israel, and ensures unwavering parliamentary support for whatever Tel Aviv wants, no matter how grotesque the reality of occupation, apartheid, or war crimes. Badenoch is right in that fold. Her carefully staged photo ops with Israeli officials aren’t accidents; they’re a rite of passage for any ambitious Tory. To rise in today’s Conservative Party, you don’t just kiss the ring, you sign up to unquestioning loyalty to Israel, just like the Labour Party does with LFI. Badenoch, ever the opportunist, has done just that. It’s one more contradiction in a career built on Temple Mount sized mound of them: the 'anti-woke' minister who never stops playing identity games; the child of immigrants who wants to pull up the drawbridge; the supposed 'outsider; who’s very much an insider with the most powerful lobbying group in Westminster at her back.
The Tory Dream Candidate
Before she became leader of the Conservative Party, for the right-wing press, Badenoch is perfect. She can front the nastiest policies with a smile. She can go on the BBC and deliver soundbites about 'free speech' while backing censorship of anything that challenges Britain’s myths about itself. She’s got the right enemies: liberals, migrants, trade unions, campaigners, students and she knows how to press the buttons of the Telegraph-reading faithful. But look closely and you’ll see the cracks. She doesn’t stand for principle. She doesn’t stand for consistency. She stands for herself, and for whichever reactionary cause will propel her career further.
Of course as a leader, Badenoch has been an absolute shambles. If there's one thing that you've got to give her credit for, it's just how piss poor, disconnected and batshit crazy she is, especially when compared to her immediate predecessors. To have that level of Whatthefuckism attached to you when you've followed, Sunak, Truss, Johnson, May and Cameron is some going.
She swaggered into the role thinking she could ride the Trumpian wave, but it’s already unravelled. Her culture-war posturing hasn’t translated into competence, her polling numbers are dire, and even the Tory faithful are grumbling that she’s all soundbites and no strategy. She picked fights with Labour that backfired, tied herself to Trump at the very moment his toxicity is poisoning Western politics again, and spent more time playing to Reform UK voters than holding her own fractured party together. Far from being the saviour of Conservatism, Badenoch looks like just another Tory leader-in-waiting destined for the scrapheap, yet another public school prick’s useful idiot who thought she could master the game, but is already being chewed up by it.
Under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership, the Conservative Party is in deeper trouble than ever. Her own net favourability languishes at –31 as of August 2025, with only 21% viewing her positively versus 52% negatively. In head-to-head polling, she trails the unpopular Sir Keir Starmer by 10 points (19% to 29%) and even sits behind Nigel Farage in some matchups. Behind the scenes, her party is beset by newsroom-level messaging disasters, like an attack ad on asylum hotels that misfired badly, prompting leaked WhatsApp complaints from MPs accusing leadership of looking hypocritical at best and 'piss‑poor' at worst. This while Reform UK overtakes the Tories in the polls. The situation is so dire that polls increasingly see Boris Johnson, not Badenoch, as the preferred successor among 2024 Tory voters. Oh what times we live in.
One FT profile even noted that she’s yet to really imprint her vision on the party post-reeling electoral defeat, and she risks becoming pigeonholed without broader media traction or policy clarity. The undercurrents of backbench disquiet, coupled with a reshuffle widely dismissed as little more than 'deckchair shuffling' make it look like Badenoch hasn’t got a leadership problem, she’s got a legitimacy problem.
Absolute head full of Teddy Bears: Kemi Bad-Enoch
There’s something really wrong with Kemi. In a rudderless ship she is less Captain and more midshipman guarding the rum ration. Kemi Badenoch comes across as weird, and a little unhinged: a recent fictional Whatsapp conversation in theTimes between her and Robert Jenrick shows how this weirdness is being platformed in satire:
Robert Jenrick :
“Just back from the beach, Kemi. It was absolutely disgusting… Makeshift tents. Gangs of young men throwing bottles. Someone even brandished a machete at me.”
Badenoch: “It’s the face tattoos that I find most upsetting. How are you going to get a job, even a McJob, which is still a great job which I did once, with a face tattoo? I’m just not sure what we can do. If we criticise them, they'll vote Reform.”
excerpt from a mock WhatsApp chat satirising her tone-deaf posturing.
It’s farcical, yes, but the satire stings because the absurdity reflects a broader view: Badenoch often sounds more like a caricature of culture-war alarmism than a reasoned leader.
Additionally, here are two moments that reinforce this portrayal:
- Civil servants “should be in prison bad”
At a fringe event during the Tory conference, Badenoch quipped that up to 10% of civil servants are 'very, very bad' and 'should be in prison bad' a hyperbolic line that got laughs but also stirred unease about her flange‑ted tone toward the state apparatus. - Sandwich-snobbery and identity tangents
In an interview with The Spectator, she declared she isn’t a 'sandwich person', dismissing sandwiches as not 'real food' and scoffing at 'moist bread'. This odd fixation didn't just make headlines, it highlighted a penchant for quirky, somewhat tone-deaf remarks that distract from serious policy debate
Unhinged, or Just Odd?
- The satirical WhatsApp quote frames her as out of touch, even bizarre, in the way she processes immigration and identity politics.
- Calling civil servants “prison bad” suggests a penchant for melodramatic, uncompromising language.
- Dismissing sandwiches and moisture in bread signals a tendency toward culturally tone-deaf trivialities.
So there really is something wrong with Kemi. She’s a fraud, a culture-war mercenary, and a puppet of the Tory right’s most toxic networks. Her contradictions aren’t charming, they’re dangerous because behind the rhetoric of 'common sense' lies a deeply cynical project: to divide, to scapegoat, and to climb. And the only thing she’s really good at is climbing.
For the sake of the country, it's comforting to know she'll never be in power. The uncomfortable truth is what will be there in her place.
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