Kemi Badenoch polished her brand as the say-the-unsayable candidate for Conservative leader thus: “Statutory maternity pay is a function of tax; tax comes from people who are working. We’re taking from one group of people and giving to another. This, in my view, is excessive.” She was talking to Times Radio, which maybe she considered a safe space, where disembodied voices could toy with words and not worry too much about what they connoted, somewhere between politics and a dream.
Reality intervened, as people rudely insisted that words did have meaning, actually, and politicians, even those who, God willing, are years from power, still have an impact on people’s lives. In the end, isn’t that what tax is – the distribution of resources from one group to another? Isn’t that what pensions are? Isn’t that what society is? If maternity leave is an excessive redistribution of resource, what is the right amount? None?
Badenoch’s rivals rejoiced; one told a journalist they had had a great day without even having to say anything. Her allies complained that others were “seeking to use selective quotes from an interview to score political hits”, which showed they simply weren’t “serious about getting back into government”, finishing: “Kemi obviously supports maternity pay.”
It really wasn’t obvious at all, nor was it clear how listening to that interview without parsing it for meaning would have helped the party back into government. Speaking for herself, Badenoch said on X: “Of course I believe in maternity pay!” Then: “Of course maternity pay isn’t excessive … no mother of 3 kids thinks that.”
Her indignation was audible, but its target hazy. Another ally, Julia Lopez, called it a “confected maternity pile-on”, which could mean pretty much anything. Were the remarks confected, to cause outrage? Was the outrage confected, to undermine the speaker? It sounds like a catalogue description of one of those fleecy breastfeeding pillows.
What should a Conservative member, choosing a party leader, with their eye on starting a family at some point, make of it all? Should they believe regulation-slashing interview Badenoch, who will strip them of their maternity rights? Or the more reasonable post-interview Badenoch, who wants the world of workplace rights to remain as it is, except with less regulation? Fanciful question, of course: it would be impossible to dig out any concrete intentions from any of the Conservative leadership candidates.
As well as hating red tape, Badenoch is fed up with all cultures being treated equally. This is low on detail, such as which cultures we would deem superior and how we would collectively indicate inferior ones (could we wear colour-coded uniforms? Or do some of us have to be interned?).
Robert Jenrick, meanwhile, wants to “trigger a switch” in the attitudes of young people by launching an “air war” on the “progressive values that have dominated the thinking in education and on social media”. James Cleverly is on a crusade against “sacrificing pragmatic government in the national interest on the altar of ideological purity”. Tom Tugendhat wants to cut immigration and also “get the blood of the economy flowing again”, although it is unclear whether those desires are related.
The academic Tim Bale published research today on the differences between Tory members and the general public, picking out unsurprising but major divergence in how likely they were to agree with statements such as “Leaders need to be able to dominate people and show a bit of aggression now and then” (public: 43% disagree v 28% agree; members: 29% disagree v 47% agree) and “It’s important for leaders to be able to manipulate situations to get their way” (public: 48% disagree v 21% agree; members: 28% disagree v 43% agree).
All this talk of war, sacrifice, altars, blood and guts isn’t coming from nowhere. Tory hopefuls are speaking to a selectorate that values or disapproves of dark traits (machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy) in inverse proportions to everyone else, which makes it not unreasonable for them to deploy imagery and metaphors that would make everyone else run away.
Badenoch wastes no time analogising. Her methods are simpler: find something, anything, you are not allowed to hate (motherhood, tolerance) and performatively hate it. If it doesn’t fly, no worries – just say you were misunderstood.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
