Kemi Badenoch goes for Zac Goldsmith

If you want a bruiser, send for Badenoch. Following Rishi Sunak’s net zero announcement yesterday, the Business and Trade Secretary was deployed to do the morning media round. Asked about Zac Goldsmith’s criticisms of the move, she told Nick Ferrari on LBC that the peer ‘is somebody who cares very much about the environment, he is a friend of mine, but the fact is he has way more money than pretty much everyone in the UK.’ Punchy stuff…

And Kemi had clearly had her cornflakes, judging from another punchy exchange on Sky News. The Saffron Walden MP clashed with host Jayne Secker over the decision to delay the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars. Badenoch hit back at Secker’s claim that the move won’t ‘really help the poorest in society’ because they ‘don’t drive’, saying:

If you step outside of London, come to my constituency, you will find the poorest in society drive because they live in a rural area… What you’ve said is actually quite astonishing… People who live in cities will be able to deal with this in a way that is quite different from people who live in towns and rural areas.