Sarah Vine: Men mocked me when I called Kemi Badenoch a winner

Women know the scene: you are sitting in a meeting dominated by men, make a suggestion and watch it disappear into the ether. Then, ten minutes later, a man repeats exactly the same idea and suddenly the room fills with nods and approving murmurs. You are left staring in disbelief at the sheer audacity of it.

That is precisely how I feel now. After being patronised for years whenever I argued that Kemi Badenoch was a serious political force and a potential future prime minister, I am now being patronised by people making the same discovery — as though I have not been saying it for months. Grrr.

When Badenoch became Conservative Party leader in 2024, the conventional wisdom was that she would be gone by Christmas. I disagreed. When the verdict shifted to, ‘Perhaps she is not so bad, but it will not last,’ I disagreed again. And while others were enthusiastically backing Nigel Farage and writing off the Conservatives as finished, I still disagreed.

When Robert Jenrick, Danny Kruger and Malcolm Offord moved to Reform and commentators declared that the Conservatives’ cause was lost, I disagreed then, too. Not because I am a political genius or a clairvoyant, but because Badenoch’s qualities have been obvious. She is the real deal.

Now the opinion polls are starting to suggest the same. Following the boost from Kemi Badenoch’s conference speech, the Conservatives have moved ahead of Reform for the first time since the election, reaching 23 per cent — just one point behind Labour on 24.

When I first admitted to being a Kemi Badenoch supporter, I was careful to acknowledge that she was not perfect.

‘Yes, she is prone to gaffes, yes, she can be strong meat and yes, she gets under people’s noses. But when the Conservative Party has been reduced to a directionless, ineffective rump of 119 seats against Labour’s 410, isn’t that precisely what you want?’ I wrote in 2024.

I also argued that Badenoch possessed many of the qualities conspicuously absent from modern politics: authenticity, determination, vision and an unshakeable sense of self that was neither negotiable nor easily changed. The Conservatives needed a leader with courage, confidence and, above all, consistency. She clearly had all three.

Perhaps most importantly, she was the only politician I had seen who appeared unafraid to make difficult arguments. Her position in the debate over transgender issues — including biological sex, women’s safe spaces and self-identification — was a clear example.

She knew what she believed, said so plainly and refused to be bullied or cancelled by her critics. While many politicians seemed willing to appease online mobs and yield to fashionable orthodoxies, Badenoch stood her ground.

In a forest of bending reeds, she appeared to be the one solid oak.

Sometimes a political party has to reach rock bottom before it can begin to recover. That was the position of the Conservatives two years ago, when Badenoch took over. Since then, it is difficult to overstate the extent of the transformation she has brought about.

When she became leader, the internal feuds that had damaged the Conservatives during their years in government were still raging. Robert Jenrick, her rival in the leadership contest, was a notable example, continuing to promote his own ambitions well into Badenoch’s time as leader.

Did that irritate her? I am sure it did. But did she allow it to undermine her? No. She let his vanity run its course. When he eventually defected, she appeared pleased. Reform, she said, was welcome to him.

‘I won’t apologise to those walking away because they don’t like the new direction,’ she said. ‘We only want Conservatives.’

Anyone else, she added, should ‘get out of the way’.

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That uncompromising, ‘my way or the highway’ attitude has been a defining feature of Badenoch’s leadership. At first it came across as abrasive. As new people have joined her team, however, she has softened it to some extent. Even so, a political party cannot be led entirely by committee — and Keir Starmer offered the clearest evidence of that.

There is more to Badenoch than the hard exterior. Beneath it is someone with genuine kindness and a sweetness of character that inspires friendship and loyalty. She has a sharp understanding of human nature, along with an unusual wisdom when handling difficult situations — as her response to the Jenrick episode demonstrated.

This means that while she can be fierce and intense at the despatch box, she can be light-hearted and engaging elsewhere, as the situation requires.

As she has grown into the role, she’s become more skilled at showing this other side of her character, which is why, unlike so many politicians, the more people see of her the more they like her.

It’s not rocket science. Ultimately, there is just something very appealing about a woman who knows her own mind, has a clear sense of purpose and is unafraid to challenge preconceptions.

Her latest policy proposals – removing the financial cliff-edge on childcare, ditching inheritance tax and stamp duty, halving national insurance contributions for workers aged 21-24, reintroducing the two-child benefit cap, scrapping net zero – have the political classes clutching their pearls. But out there in the real world, they make sense.

She still has a way to go. If her assessment is correct, and Andy Burnham does call an early December election, then she will have quite the fight on her hands convincing the electorate to give her party another chance.

But fighting is what she does best. And, so far, she has proved every one of her doubters wrong.

A wicked role for Florence

Along with many others, I’ve been gripped by the new TV adaptation of John Steinbeck’s epic novel, East Of Eden, starring Florence Pugh as the personification of evil, Cathy Ames. She is a wickedly complex character, played brilliantly by Pugh, who showcases her astonishing acting range here. 

At the heart of this story is a woman whose beauty masks a dark and twisted soul, who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. In a world more than ever obsessed with appearance, it’s a stark reminder that beauty is not always a mark of goodness.

Is the dining room going the same way as the dodo? It would seem so. According to new research, almost a quarter of homeowners have turned theirs into something else – a games room, a home office, a yoga studio. This is fine, I suppose, if you have a kitchen big enough for a table, but the idea of doing away with a dining room altogether seems so grim.

Trump’s gone for glamour…again

Donald Trump’s new press secretary is glamorous blonde TV presenter Katie Zacharia, all ‘t**s and teeth’, as my grandmother used to say – and almost indistinguishable from his last appointee to the role, Karoline Leavitt. 

Before that there was Kayleigh McEnany, who served in the role during Trump’s first administration. His foreign policy may be as changeable as the weather, but when it comes to top female aides, never let it be said The Donald isn’t reliably consistent.

There’s having a good relationship with your ex and there’s officiating at their wedding. Just a month after his divorce to Jennifer Meyer, actor Tobey Maguire presided over her nuptials to Geoffrey Ogunlesi, a man taller, younger and richer than him. Judging by the look on Maguire’s face, he couldn’t be happier for them. Either that, or he knows something Mr Ogunlesi doesn’t…

Andy Burnham does love going backwards, doesn’t he? It’s like he’s permanently stuck in reverse. First it’s back to the Seventies, and now he wants to take Britain back to some pre-Brexit utopia that never existed – and certainly doesn’t exist now. Also, someone needs to tell him that when he gets his fake tan done, he mustn’t forget the eyelids. They are beyond the pale. Like his policies.