Badenoch Considers Adjusting Her Approach Following Colleagues’ Feedback

Conservative leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has stated her intention to moderate her style, after some of her peers suggested she can be impolite. Badenoch is widely considered the frontrunner to succeed Rishi Sunak as Tory leader, with the results of the party membership ballot scheduled for release on Saturday. When questioned about the perception that she can be seen as abrasive, Badenoch acknowledged that she might need to adopt a more cautious approach. “I think this is one of the manifestations that I don’t think I’m being rude,” she told the BBC’s Newscast podcast, attributing her demeanor to “having a higher threshold for stress”. She elaborated, “I just think I’m saying something that I wouldn’t mind hearing back, so I treat people how I treat myself and, you know, I’ve had even some of my advisors saying, why did you say that? “I have to be mindful that I have a higher tolerance for things than others, and I think part of being a leader is being able to calibrate so that you can help manage other people.” Asked if she would implement a more gentle approach moving forward, she responded, “yes, but that’s fine”, adding, “I’m not perfect, you know, I’ve never said that I was perfect”. She continued: “We keep wanting people who will give the perfect interview and have the perfect policies look perfect. “There’s nobody like that. Everybody’s coming with pluses and minuses.” Badenoch, who has conducted significantly fewer interviews with journalists compared to her rival Jenrick, also indicated a low turnout among Tory members voting for their new party leader. “I’m doing more media this week specifically because people aren’t turning out to vote as much as we would have expected,” she said. Badenoch recounted that when engaging with Conservative members at events, she would inquire if they had voted and be told, “well, no, they haven’t. We’re going to wait till the last minute.” However, the former business secretary stated she was not concerned that Tory party members were not voting for her, claiming to be “sanguine” about the results. “I don’t know if I will win,” she said. “The bookies have me ahead, but I think it’s actually neck and neck. “Robert could win. Anyone could win. Either of us could win.” When asked if party members might be dissatisfied with the choices presented to them, Badenoch responded: “Well, there’s nothing I can do about that. That’s politics.”