Elected to the safe seat of Saffron Walden in Essex in 2017, Badenoch took just two years to join the front benches and was, until her resignation this week, joint minister for empowerment and equalities. Last year, Badenoch, a former junior education minister, was briefly tipped to succeed Gavin Williamson as education secretary, although she was eventually relegated to another second-tier role. Badenoch’s step into Tory MPs places her far to the right of the party, where she risks seeking support from a similar ideological group to Suella Braverman, the attorney general, who entered the race on Wednesday. Announcing her decision to run in an op-ed in The Times, Badenoch condemned what she called “bullshit and empty rhetoric”, offering a somewhat vague promise of smaller government and lower taxes, plus an ironclad commitment to Brexit. Much of the article was devoted to a condemnation of identity politics and ‘social justice’, particularly that based on race and culture, a common theme of Badenoch’s political discourse. The 42-year-old former banker, who grew up in the UK, US and Nigeria, has faced previous criticism for her openly radical views on culture war issues, particularly her belief that racial inequalities are often exaggerated rather than structural and objectified. exploitation. for division from the left. Last year, some academics condemned Badenoch when she accused schools of teaching white privilege as an indisputable fact, saying this broke the law. Badenoch said she did not want white children to be taught about their “inherited racial guilt”. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Known as hard-working and dedicated, Badenoch is popular with some Conservative MPs but openly disliked by others because of her strong opinions and personal style that some say can be off-putting. Last year he faced calls to apologize or be fired after responding to a routine reporter’s request for comment about a video on Covid vaccines, tweeting the reporter’s name and questions, accusing her of making up allegations and calling her behavior “creepy and strange”. The reporter, Nadine White, then of the Huffpost website, received considerable abuse after the tweets.
