‘I will die protecting this country’: Kemi Badenoch on where she plans to take the Tories

‘It’s like a start-up,’ Kemi Badenoch explains of her new job, as she plumps down on a sofa in the Spectator offices. A month into her tenure as Conservative party leader and she is discovering the upsides to being out of power. ‘Everyone around me in the leader of the opposition office is there because of me – not because they happened to be there when I got there. That changes the dynamic quite a bit.’

‘What’s a lunch break? Lunch is for wimps. I don’t think sandwiches are a real food’

She says the ‘biggest difference’ so far between being a secretary of state and leader of the opposition is that the role is ‘actually a lot less lonely’. ‘We are creating an office in our image and our mindset and that’s different to going into the civil service and government departments.’

The man helping her to shape that image is her chief of staff, Lee Rowley, the former North East Derbyshire MP who was one of the 175 Tories to be booted out of the Commons at the last election. ‘He is pretty much my closest friend in politics, so I have my friends with me,’ Badenoch says. ‘I have always wanted to make copies of myself – you know, when you are so busy – and it’s like having another me there. It’s absolutely brilliant.’

What does a day in Badenoch’s new life look like? Back-to-back meetings? Policy research? Time to decompress?

‘What’s decompressing, what’s that?’ she grins. Does she break for lunch? ‘What’s a lunch break? Lunch is for wimps. I have food brought in and I work and eat at the same time. There’s no time… Sometimes I will get a steak… I’m not a sandwich person, I don’t think sandwiches are a real food, it’s what you have for breakfast.’ Soggy bread is a no-no: ‘I will not touch bread if it’s moist.’