Bad start
Kemi Badenoch has not made a great start to her new job. Apparently she thinks that Boris Johnson was a great PM and the lock down infringements at No. 10 are all in the past, best forgotten, nothing important and actually more the fault of stupid rules than those who partied.
Which is strange because she did not have to say any of this, the people who voted for her might think it but then they have already voted for her and she now needs the votes of all those fools, idiots and gullible wimps who obeyed the rules, buried their relatives at sparse funerals, suffered alone, but did it all because they were told those were the rules.
More importantly it is not a very good idea to defend the indefensible, especially when there is no need and not to draw a line under an appalling scandal by apologising, blaming your predecessor, and moving on.
It seems that Kemi really is in lock step with the membership of the party and thinks just a bit more movement to the right and they will be back in power for ever. That Johnson was a genius and Brexit worked, that only the little people obey the law and pay taxes.
Yet even if she did believe all this why did she not realise that saying the opposite was the clever, smart, and easier option? That distancing herself from Johnson and Cummings was the obvious thing to do, that he more than anyone else cost the Tories the election.
It costs nothing to apologise, but not apologising can be very expensive. She has handed her opponents a gun and fresh ammo, over a subject that was fading in the memory.
Let alone exposing the fact that she doesn’t care about politicians doing the right thing.
Not a good look, not a good start.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
They haven't picked a consensus builder. She will find it hard to gather the middle ground. She seems a person to try and bring the country to her rather than vice versa.