ANDREW ROBERTS: I knew Thatcher and see echoes of her in Badenoch

There's a distinct sense of déjà vu. 'Strident', they call her, and 'shrill'. 'She'll cross the road to pick a fight,' they say.

'Aggression across the despatch box is not the way to win an election,' they opine. Every single public criticism of Kemi Badenoch was once employed against the greatest British politician of the past eight decades: Margaret Thatcher.

There are other criticisms you can be sure are not made openly, but lurk in the minds of snobs and bigots. Thatcher was a mere chemist, they said; Kemi is an engineer and so not from the Politics, Philosophy and Economics-infused world of so many modern politicians.

Thatcher came from Grantham, the 1970s equivalent of Kemi's Nigerian heritage as far as a lot of people were concerned. She was a woman when politics was very much a man's world, but it is because of her that Kemi could yet be the Tories' fourth female leader when Labour has had none.

Yet it is not the attacks against Kemi that stir that déjà vu, but the almost messianic flash in her eyes when she talks about how Britain could do better, given sound leadership.

I knew Lady Thatcher well enough for her to appoint me to the trustee's position she was vacating on the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust, and I can spot echoes and cadences of her in Kemi Badenoch.

At a time when Britons have lost trust in the leaders of all parties, someone has emerged who can restore that trust, in part because she is guided by an ideological North Star.

Read More

SARAH VINE: Why Kemi, the human tornado, must be Tory leader

People did not particularly love Margaret Thatcher personally at the beginning of her front-bench career, but they soon learned to respect her because she so obviously believed what she said.

So it is with Kemi, who could have used weasel-words in a thousand interviews to get round difficult questions, but instead tells it like it is.

Of course, that can lead to 'gaffes', but better to speak directly with the occasional gaffe than adopt the robotic politico-speak we hear so much of from ministers and MPs today. The hardest job in the miserable slog of opposition is not to get everything right, but to be heard and get noticed. Incumbent governments have all the power in leading the political narrative, and it requires an intellectual self-confidence, quick wit and occasionally rebarbative personality to be able to trip the Government up and recapture, however momentarily, the news agenda.

Margaret Thatcher had that ability, and I strongly suspect Kemi does, too.

It is not done by having detailed policies in every area, indeed that would be absurd for a Tory party which has nil chance of implementing them for at least four years. No, what is required from a leader of the Opposition, which has been proved by all the successful ones from Churchill in 1945 to 1951, to Thatcher (1975 to 1979), to Blair (1994 to 1997) is to enunciate eloquently broad but heartfelt principles that the people can legitimately believe will guide the leader once in No 10. Kemi is doing that, so will generate an audience that guarantees the Conservatives a hearing again.

There is no God-given right for the Conservative Party to thrive or even exist. Populist Right-wing insurgency parties have been crushing centre-Right ones across Europe, and in America Trumpism has almost entirely replaced the Bushite Republicans.

In order to win back votes from Reform, the Tories need Kemi's passion and evident loathing for wokery (only this week, she said she would give Harry Potter author JK Rowling a peerage for her defence of women's rights in the face of the trans lobby).

Read More

Kemi Badenoch denies she's 'running scared' during Tory leadership contest

The Red Wall, which is only weakly held by Labour in many seats, want the real deal from the Conservatives, and that is what Kemi offers.

We also know from the Left's allergic reaction to Kemi that she is cutting through.

When Doctor Who actor David Tennant told the LGBT Awards ceremony this summer that he was looking forward to the day when 'we wake up and Kemi Badenoch doesn't exist any more,' adding, 'I don't wish ill of her, I just wish her to shut up', he got enthusiastic applause from an audience that would normally be rightly outraged at a white man telling a black woman he wished she were dead.

When the Labour Party has been led by a Jew like Disraeli, or a Hindu like Rishi Sunak, or three women, as the Conservative Party has, then they can preach to the Tories about diversity, but not before. If Kemi is elected leader, the Tories will have proved yet again their lack of racial and sexual bigotry.

Margaret Thatcher was deluged with an avalanche of hatred throughout the 15 years of her party leadership.

For all the disgusting words of Doctor Who and others, Kemi has not yet had to face a fraction of the attacks – including the murderous IRA bomb at Brighton 40 years ago this month – that Thatcher had to face.

Yet as someone who knows Kemi and admires her, and who has been a Conservative Party member for 42 years, I can attest that there is a steeliness in her nature that will make Tories proud should they see her across the despatch box, eviscerating Keir Starmer.

Lord Roberts of Belgravia is author of Churchill: Walking With Destiny.