Tories: fresh start with a new leader?
Britain's Conservative Party has elected former trade secretary Kemi Badenoch as its new leader, making her the first Black leader of a major British party. She is seen as belonging to the right wing of the Tory Party. Commentators take very different views of her election.
In most respects a blast from the past
Badenoch's election does not mark a turning point in the Tory party's politics, warns The Guardian:
“Her remarkable rise is another indication that Britain's politics has begun to reflect its modern multicultural reality. In most other respects, however, Ms Badenoch is a blast from the past. She spent her campaign selling a version of old-time Tory religion, attributing the Conservative party's worst defeat in modern times to its having 'talked right, but governed left'. Pushing the notion that voters were pining for her vision of a small-state, low-tax, deregulated Britain, and went elsewhere when it did not materialise, is eye-catchingly counterintuitive. ... it speaks of denial rather than renewal.”
A worthy successor to Thatcher
The Spectator voices satisfaction:
“Being black is not the most important thing about Badenoch. Like Thatcher, she is middle-class, the daughter of professionals. Like Thatcher, she studied a hard subject at university (computer systems engineering) and came to political and economic theory later in life, after experiencing the real world of the private sector. Like Thatcher, Badenoch is a free–trader in a world of tariffs ... A country adrift needs a leader with conviction. We are lucky to have her.”