“I don’t scare easy,” 45-year-old, Wimbledon-born Kemi Badenoch (full name Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch) said to me in the back of her car on her way to Kent on Tuesday, to lend support to all the Conservative candidates fighting for survival in the local elections on May 1. “I’m tough. I have to be.”
Well, she needs to be, because Badenoch has not been having such a great time recently. She is struggling to attract donors (apparently, although she quickly says this is not the case — “Completely untrue!”), struggling in the polls, and seems rather unloved by media and public alike. Keir Starmer’s party might be increasingly unpopular — Labour’s honeymoon period was over before they got themselves elected, and every time Rachel Reeves opens her mouth, her divorce from her job looks a little more likely — but the Tories are doing even worse. Labour currently has a 23 per cent rating, Reform are on 25 per cent, while Badenoch’s Tories are on 20 per cent.
