Kemi Badenoch’s bizarre Doctor Who tirade won’t win her the leadership contest

At her campaign launch to be Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch gave off the same overconfident, arrogant, unempathetic vibes as Liz Truss, says Sean O’Grady

Kemi Badenoch referenced Doctor Who during her campaign to lead the Tories (PA)

Perhaps more unnerving than some of their policies is when politicians try to insert themselves into pop culture.

Liz Truss and Keir Starmer both claimed to be staunch Swifties. Rishi Sunak attempted to improve his street cred by donning a pair of Adidas Sambas, ruining the fashion staple for many. And, just last week, Angela Rayner was spotted raving in Ibiza.

Yet the latest video put out by Kemi Badenoch in her bid to become the next leader of the Conservative Party is, so far as I’m aware, the first time a Tory has vowed to fight a fictional character (though if Margaret Thatcher had taken on Darth Vader, no doubt she would have won).

I am, of course, talking about Badenoch’s tirade against Doctor Who.

In response to a remark actor David Tennant made during an acceptance speech at the British LGBT Awards, where he urged the Tory politician to “shut up”, Badenoch stated: “No – I will not shut up.

“When you have that type of cultural establishment trying to keep Conservatives down, you need someone like me who’s not afraid of Doctor Who or whoever, and who is going to take the fight to them and not let them try and keep us down.”

It is a novelty, this re-casting of the former minister for women and equalities in the beloved BBC series, provisionally titled “Doctor Who and The Badenoch”. But it is what it is, as they say in professional football and the 1922 Committee.

I don’t know how Doctor Who would even begin to tackle The Badenoch, but of all the six candidates running to be leader of the opposition (now more than ever, the worst job in politics), she’s certainly the most terrifying. As well as being the latest protege of Michael Gove, she seems to share much of his gift for phrasemaking and his thoughtful – if not insidious – political insights.

At her “launch” event for a campaign that’s actually been running, submarine-like, since long before the general election, she dished out her principles, which weren’t really principles as such, just a series of armoured vehicles to be deployed in the culture wars she loves so much and of which most of the nation is heartily tired.

In one fairly short press conference, she argued that equalities legislation favoured unnamed minority groups, which is too near the “two-tier” canard for comfort.

Interestingly, for a Tory, she puts “the family” ahead of the individual, which begs the question as to what kind of families are the foundation of our society, and which are not.

Her social conservatism has a fundamentalist American feel to it. A few days ago, she also, in so many words, said she would dismantle all the formal and informal checks and balances on the abuse of executive power, such as the courts, independent agencies (presumably regulators, watchdogs, and the likes of the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility), parliament, the media and anything else that gets in her way.

She even declared herself a “devolution sceptic”, which hints at an attempt by Westminster to roll back the powers of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Senedd – a constitutional crisis ready on day one of a Badenoch premiership. It would be like Brexit all over again, but even less fun.

Badenoch has some of the same sort of overconfident, arrogant, “direct”, unempathetic vibes to her as Liz Truss, but the former is obviously more plausible and articulate.

With such an agenda, and knowing that Doctor Who/David Tennant can’t actually banish her to another solar system, who can stop this supernatural force? James Cleverly? He, too, was “launching” an already well-established leadership bid, and his pitch was a fairly basic one.

First, all of the candidates had served in the Conservative government, so they are all damaged goods. That, he implied, is true even if one, ie Badenoch, has denounced how “we talked right but governed left, sounding like Conservatives but acting like Labour” (net zero being an example).

Badenoch is leaning into the old Thatcher tactic of decrying the last government she served in as a failure, because it wasn’t really Conservative, and was too accepting of an outdated political consensus. But she shares in the historic defeat, even so.

The fact is that, whatever was the case half a century ago, this lot lost because they weren’t competent, though Cleverly is too well mannered to say it. He was, however, not too shy to point out that he has the most high-level experience and is the best “communicator”. Which might be true, but he’s no Ronald Reagan.

Later this week we may look forward to Tom Tugendhat’s underwhelming relaunch, having witnessed Robert Jenrick’s gruesomely American-style effort last week – complete with a background audience holding cards with his name on them. That hasn’t stopped him picking up some significant backbench names such as Mark Francois, David Frost, Neil O’Brien and John Hayes (“significant” only in the Tory context, of course).

He’s now building momentum and closing in on Badenoch, who was once runaway favourite. When parliament returns shortly, Priti Patel, surprisingly behind, and Mel Stride, the continuity Sunak-Hunt candidate, will probably be eliminated, leaving four to tout themselves around the Tory conference.

As things currently stand, it will most likely be Jenrick playing Doctor Who (or “Robert who?” to the voters) and trying to vanquish The Badenoch and her Goveian allies. We will have a new leader of the opposition on Saturday 2 November, and it will be a close-run thing. Which also means the new leader and their rival will be set up in an unhappy dynamic from the get-go.

Either way, no one will be interested in what they have to say, because the Conservatives will still be marooned on a different planet in a galaxy far away, uninhabitable for the rest of us, and quite unable to get the Tory Tardis working.