Badenoch pitches herself as the great disruptor

Kemi Badenoch’s opening video before her speech had a series of politicians and normal people talking at odd angles into their phones about the need for a new politician. She was pictured smiling, charming people in person, and vowing ‘let’s renew’, before she walked onto the stage for another no-notes speech. 

It was, as you would expect, a speech that embraced the idea of tearing everything up and starting again, with Badenoch as the disruptor. She promised to ‘Rewire, reboot and reprogramme’, adding that: ‘Nothing is more exciting to me. I am an engineer, and engineers don’t hide from the truth.’ Her overhaul would involve the Conservatives rewriting ‘the rules of the game’, and producing a ‘plan that considers every aspect of what the state does and why it does it.’ That would include looking at international agreements, the Human Rights Act, judicial reviews, activism, the Treasury, the Bank of England, the civil service and the health service.